


Blame It on the Weather

by funkmetalalchemist



Series: Criminology 101 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Blow Jobs, Eren Jaeger doesn't listen to weather forecasts, Kissing, M/M, Professor!Levi, and i'm not gonna lie, i'm so weak, misunderstandings involving underwear, this is also technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2017-12-31 18:03:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funkmetalalchemist/pseuds/funkmetalalchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren is about to begin his freshman year of college. One day he trips into the arms of a handsome stranger, which would be par for the course if he was the star of a romantic comedy. But he's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

It should not have come as a surprise to Eren that college suited Mikasa and Armin much better than it suited him. Classes weren’t even going to start for another week, but he was already floundering. His classmates were vapid and careless, his roommate, Jean, was a complete douchebag, and the weather was awful. Mikasa and Armin, his best (and if he were being honest, his only) friends were in a different dorm. Mikasa and Armin had already made new friends.  Mikasa and Armin, who insisted Eren would not get left behind, had left Eren behind for the rest of the afternoon. Eren was angry. So, Eren walked. And that was about when the awful weather started to kick in.  Eren glanced up at the graying sky just as a raindrop hit his forehead.

As horribly as college seemed to be going so far, the campus was beautiful. Eren glanced at the leaves that were still clinging onto the green of summer as he walked. This and the fact that Mikasa and Armin were both going were the main reasons he’d decided to attend Rosa Maria University in the first place.  He’d never really been anywhere quite so beautiful. He had known the first time he had toured it the year before that he would be taking walks like these a lot.

A shiver tore through Eren, and he took a hand out of the pocket of his old high school JROTC jacket to pull on his hood. The wind and rain, it appeared, had teamed up in order to make Eren’s pitiful life just that much worse. His face was getting soaked, but he wasn’t about to go back to his dorm to listen to Jean continue bragging or asking him about Mikasa, though.  No, he’d rather get a little wet than suffer through that more than was absolutely necessary.

The rain really was getting annoying, though. Maybe he would stop and get some coffee. Eren stopped and looked around. It looked like he had ventured off campus and was near a small suburban neighborhood . There was a little diner about two blocks down. They would have coffee and central heating.  Just as he took a step toward the curb, a car horn blew from his left. Several things happened at once. First, Eren tripped. Well, it had been a jump at first, but his heel got caught on the curb and he lost his balance. Then the car, which Eren had somehow managed to not hear or see coming (for this he would blame the rain and wind rather than his own lack of observation), sped past him, honking. This caused the puddle, which, thanks to this sudden flash flood was right against the curb and a solid two inches deep, to soak Eren entirely. And finally, a stranger caught Eren. That part was probably the worst, somehow. Eren was anything but a damsel in distress, but at the moment he felt alarmingly like the bumbling yet charming protagonist of the sort of romantic comedy Armin would insist on making him and Mikasa watch with him.

The stranger, who had only just stopped Eren from landing flat on his ass by hooking his own arms under Eren’s shoulders, easily helped a stuttering Eren to his feet.

If this were a romantic comedy, however, this man didn't exactly fit the visage of a love interest. Though his face was pretty enough, under his eyes was a deep purplish tint that suggested he hadn’t seen sleep in weeks. He was dressed sharply and his longish hair looked as if it had recently been on the receiving end of a very thorough combing. He appeared to be maybe in his late twenties, and was probably (no, definitely) shorter than Eren. Also, he was currently scowling at the wet knees of his pleated pants.

“Sorry…”  Eren mumbled, futilely wiping at the front of his ruined sweatshirt.

“What’s there to be sorry for? You didn’t put the puddle there, and you weren’t driving the car. I suppose, however,” he continued, picking up a closed umbrella he had apparently dropped in the process of catching Eren, “that you were stupid enough to walk into oncoming traffic.” Eren’s face, already red from the wind and rain, blushed even further.

“Uh, thank you. For, you know. Catching me,” he said, trying to sound confident.

“Mm,” the stranger hummed in some sort of acknowledgement. Then, he swiftly just turned as if to leave, yet only took a few steps before turning to look back at Eren.

“Well?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“What?” Eren was absolutely and entirely bewildered. Was there an etiquette to this sort of thing? Was he making some sort of being-caught-in-the-rain-by-a-mildly-handsome-man faux pas?

“There’s coffee and clean clothes at my apartment. Don’t want to catch pneumonia in your first week of college,” and then he turned on the spot and began walking away. After staring at the man’s back (he still didn’t even know his name) for a few moments, Eren finally decided that, worst-case scenario, he could probably take the guy in a fight. He gathered himself and ran after him.

“What’s your name?” Eren asked once he had caught up. The man glanced at him and paused for a few moments.

“…Levi.”

“I’m Eren.”

Levi didn’t respond, only looked either way before jogging lightly across the street. As it turned out, Levi’s apartment was right across the road. Once they got under the awning, Levi shook out his still-closed umbrella and took off his shoes. He threw Eren a quick look that told him in no uncertain terms that he should take his off too. Eren proceeded to do so, hopping around when he lost his balance and blushing when Levi turned to watch him struggle.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said with the smallest hint of a smirk.

“Shut up,” Eren said, finally muttered lamely, his shoes finally off.

 

“Socks, too. And cuff up your jeans. They’re wet,” Levi said, opening the door to his apartment. Eren removed his wet socks, a sensation he had forgotten was absolutely disgusting, and shoved his pant legs up before walking in. He could understand why Levi wouldn’t allow shoes now. The place was fucking pristine. It looked like a model home, but without all the hokey fake family photos lining the walls. There was even a basket of apples on the kitchen counter. Eren hadn’t even known that those things were real. He’d grown up in a neat enough home, but his father never seemed to be around after his mom had died, so most of the tidiness was Mikasa and Eren’s doing. But this was honestly impressive, to the point where he almost didn’t want to step in.  Now Levi was staring at him like he was an idiot again, so Eren, despite all the things he’d been taught to do by his parents and kindergarten teacher, stepped into this strange man’s home. 

* * *

 

 

Eren was firmly handed a pile of clothes, a pair of basketball shorts on the bottom and an old Rosa Maria long-sleeved shirt on top, and was silently pointed in the direction of the bathroom before he went to change. As he looked around for a place to put his wet pants, he heard the sound of coffee brewing from the kitchen. Smiling softly, Eren hung his pants on the shower curtain rod. He paused, and the smile fell away. His boxer briefs were still wet. Would it be weird for him to take them off? And put on Levi’s shorts commando? He was debating, his fingers hooked in the elastic band when Levi knocked on the door.

“Let me throw your clothes in the dryer,” Levi’s voice sounded, low, through the door, sending Eren immediately into panic mode. He tore his underwear halfway down to his knees before shaking his head and pulling them back up. No. That would be weird. Levi would think that would be weird. Strangely enough, Eren wanted to impress Levi. He heard Levi clear his throat and he tore his shirt, sweatshirt and jeans off of the shower curtain rod and opened the door a crack holding them out with one hand.

“Thanks,” Eren said, quickly shutting the door. He let out his breath and closed his eyes. Eren felt like a fucking idiot. After a few seconds silence, he heard a hum from the other side of the door.

“No underwear?”

Eren froze. What. He helplessly felt the blush covering his entire body as he forced his arms to do the kind of things arms are supposed to do and he shoved down his plain gray boxer briefs. He stepped out of them slowly, carefully, and, not looking, opened the door a crack and stuck his hand out, the wet gray fabric dangling from his fingertips. He shut his eyes tight as he felt the fabric being lifted from his fingertips. He could almost hear Levi’s smirk as he quickly withdrew his hand and shut the door, his heart pounding and his breathing heavy.

What the fuck just happened? Well, he knew what just happened. He’d just given his fucking underwear to a guy he’d met not 20 minutes ago. He was naked in a stranger’s creepily clean house. And that stranger was possibly a creep? Who wanted his underwear?

No. Eren was overthinking this. _Guy is such a neat-freak he just doesn’t want me to sit down and get his chair wet or something, that’s all_ , Eren thought. He shook his head and grabbed at the clothes that he’d been given. As he grabbed the basketball shorts, a pair of white boxers fell onto the ground. Eren blanched. Okay, this was definitely weird, but Eren couldn’t tell if it was nice weird or just creepy weird. His phone was right there. If anything strange happened, he could just call Mikasa. He picked up the boxer shorts and slid them on carefully. He had never liked the feeling of boxer shorts, but he wasn’t about to complain. He put on the rest of his clothes and looked in the mirror. The shirt was a little tight across his chest, but otherwise everything fit fine. It was a shirt from his university. Levi must have gone there. Eren grabbed his keys, wallet and phone from the counter and shoved them into his pockets before heading out the door.

Eren walked back out to the kitchen where the coffee had just finished brewing. A beep rang out from another part of the house and was quickly followed by the sound of a dryer starting. Forcing himself to relax, Eren sat down on a stool at the kitchen counter, waiting. Finally, Levi rounded the corner, wearing a dry pair of slacks now.

“You don’t have to look so uneasy. I’m just drying your clothes. You don’t have to return those, by the way,” Levi said, pointing lazily at Eren’s shirt as he made his way into the kitchen. He procured two mugs from a cabinet and walked over to the coffee maker.

Eren cleared his throat nervously, trying to get rid of the blush that seemed to insist on making his face a permanent home. “So, you went to Rosa Maria?” he asked in as casual of a tone as he could muster.

Levi snorted. “That is where I got the shirt.”

“So, you decided to stay here after you graduated? Why?” Eren couldn’t imagine why an adult would want to live in a college town, especially one with weather like this.

Levi paused. “Work,” he finally answered.

“Oh.” Eren was going to ask what line of work Levi was in, but Levi spoke first.

“You’re a freshman there, I assume?” Levi asked, handing the cup over to Eren and sliding over containers of sugar and liquid creamer. Eren opted for the latter.

“Yeah, just got here a few days ago. How could you tell?” Eren asked, stirring in the creamer.

Levi raised an eyebrow. “You were wearing a high school sweatshirt, you were walking on campus during Freshman Orientation Week, and you were alone, which means you have yet to make any friends.”

“I have friends!” Eren said defensively. “They went to the football game with some other people. I don’t like football, so I didn’t go.”

“You don’t like football? I would assume a junior ROTC member would love that kind of senseless violence.” Levi said, taking a sip of the steaming hot coffee.

“Not senseless violence, no.” Eren mumbled. “Besides,” Eren continued, speaking up now, “I don’t think I’m going to continue with ROTC. I think I’m going to go into criminology, maybe criminal justice.”

“I got my degree in criminology.” Levi said, looking at the wall, probably at a speck of dust or something.

“Yeah? Cool, maybe you can teach me a thing or two.”

Levi let out a small laugh. “Maybe, yeah.”

They talked. Not about anything in particular, a little about Rosa Maria, about Eren’s family and friends. Eren found himself doing most of the talking, but he didn’t really mind. He hadn’t spoken much in the last few days, still acclimating to the fact that his friends would not be surrounding him every waking moment. Eren quickly realized that, strange as Levi was, he was probably not a threat to him, and he was actually pretty cool, in a very nerdy way. From what Eren could get out of him, Levi definitely owned at least two swords (Eren owned one too, but it was at home in his closet, and in his defense, he had been a very anime-obsessed middle schooler), and had been in the military for a time after high school. He also had the most impossibly dry sense of humor. Also, Eren thought he was maybe kind of a little hot when he shook his hair out of his eyes. Eventually, the dryer beeped and Eren blushingly accepted his clothes, changing quickly in the bathroom and stifling a sigh at how warm they were. After some insistence, Eren agreed to take the clothes he had been lent back home with him in a plastic bag. Levi offered to drive him.

“The rain’s stopped for the moment, so I think I’ll risk it, but thanks for offering. This whole thing was really unnecessarily kind of you, Levi. I don’t want to intrude,” Eren said.

“I washed your underwear. You’ve already intruded,” Levi stated blank-faced.

Eren blushed furiously and mumbled, “Yeah, thanks for that.”

“Well, you know me. I’d never be able to leave a wet kitten on the street,” Levi said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. It seemed to be a goal of his to make Eren blush as much as possible. And he was succeeding. Eren smiled at him.

“Well, thank you for your hospitality. I really appreciate it.” Levi opened the door for Eren and Eren took a step out. “I guess I’ll see you around?” Eren asked hopefully.

“Oh, I would wager on it.” Levi smirked again. “Small town, you know.”

“Okay, well. So long.” Eren said after failing to come up with a better goodbye.

“Goodbye, Eren.” Levi said, shutting the door as Eren turned away.

* * *

 

As it turned out, they saw one another sooner than Eren would have thought. Two days later, Eren was taking another walk around the windy (but thankfully dry at the moment) town to meet Armin and Mikasa. Armin’s new friend Connie had recommended what was apparently the best coffee place in town, and the three of them had agreed to meet there.

Eren glanced up at a familiar-sounding street sign. Unsure, he pulled the directions out of his pocket. The wind immediately picked them up and blew them right into a passing bystander, who, as it happened, turned out to be Levi.  Eren’s life was getting more and more like a romantic comedy every day. All he needed was a fun shopping montage. Smiling, Eren ran up to meet Levi, who was carefully picking up the note between his thumb and forefinger, and squinting as he read it.

“Hey, Levi!” Eren called, finally catching up to him.

“Eren. How many times am I going to have to pick up after you?” he asked, handing over the note.

“Ha-ha,” Eren gave a humorless laugh. “Very funny. Thanks, though. I have no idea where this place is.”

“Corporal Coffee?” Levi surmised, turning to look in what Eren guessed was the direction the coffee place was in. “If you cut through that alley just down the street and turn right, it should be the first or second shop down.”

“Really? Okay, thanks,” Eren said. He paused before steeling himself and continuing. “So, hey Levi, I was thinking, could I have your number? Like just in case I need some help in a criminology course, or if I need help finding my way around town. Maybe we could, you know, hang out or something. You seem like the type of person who hasn’t seen a movie in the theaters since they were a teenager.”

“Mmm. Do I?” Levi asked quietly. “Sure. I suppose. But don’t expect me to go out of my way to go on teenaged gallivants with you. I'm pretty busy. Especially this time of year.” He held his hand out expectantly. Eren scrambled to hand him his phone, unlocking it and opening the page for a new contact. He handed it toward Levi, who took it out of his hands and quickly typed in his information. Ten seconds later, the phone was returned to Eren, who shoved it hastily into his back pocket.

The wind started to pick up. Eren hunched his shoulders and dug his hands further into his jacket’s pockets, balling his fists. He gave himself a small internal punch to the shoulder for not bringing a heavier jacket. Mikasa would berate him for it later. Levi looked perfectly comfortable in his gray peacoat and knitted scarf.

“Cool! I should get going, it’s getting pretty chilly. I can’t believe it’s only September. I’ll text you later?” It came out as more of a hopeful question than a statement, but Levi nodded back at him anyway.

“Okay, well, I’ll-“ Eren gasped as a particularly cold blast of wind hit his face. He recovered quickly. “I’ll see you around,” he said, shaking his head of the cold. Levi stared at him for a moment before nodding. Eren watched him, waiting for him to say goodbye, but apparently that wasn’t about to happen. So, he turned to leave.

After three steps, a hand on his shoulder stopped him. Eren turned, surprised when a piece of fabric was wrapped around his neck without a word’s warning. Levi had given him his scarf.

“Here,” Levi said, avoiding Eren’s eye. “I expect you to return this.” Then Levi turned to leave without another word. Eren stared after him for a few moments before reaching up to feel the scarf. It was wool, knitted, a deep emerald green. It looked handmade. He wrapped it further around his neck, tucking it into his jacket. He smiled as he turned to walk down the alley toward the café.

When he arrived, his friends chided him for being late.

“Did you misread the directions?” Armin asked, frowning at Eren’s red-tipped nose and cheeks. Armin’s hand, holding a small black chess piece, was poised above the half-played board sitting between Mikasa and him, forgotten as he watched Eren walk in.

“You should dress warmer if you know the weather is going to be like this,” Mikasa chimed in. As Eren sat down, she rubbed a thumb against the cool pink of his cheek, and slowly let her hand drop to the scarf around his neck. “When did you get this?” She asked in a strangely accusatorial voice.

“My friend Levi let me borrow it.” Eren tugged self-consciously at the knitted scarf in question.

“Le-vi!” Armin sing-songed tauntingly, finally placing his rook on a the chess board. “Who’s that? One of the guys from your dorm?”

“Just some guy I met the other day while you were at the football game. He’s pretty cool.” Eren avoided his friends’ eyes as the waitress passed and handed him the coffee it seemed Mikasa and Armin had already ordered for him. He had decided against telling the two of them about Levi. He hated being seen as anything other than strong and self-assured. Being saved from falling on his ass by a dark mysterious stranger wasn’t the toughest image he could present of himself. So, he’d folded the clothes he’d been lent and tucked them gently into the pajama drawer in his dorm.

“Yeah? He should come and hang out with us in the library sometime.” Armin offered. Mikasa’s face was still frozen in a small disapproving frown.

“He can’t. He, uh, doesn’t go to Rosa Maria. He already graduated.” Eren took a sip of his coffee to avoid explaining anything further.

“Is he an older man, then? Is that why you didn’t tell us about him?” Mikasa asked, finally dropping her frown and turning back to the chess board, picking up a pawn to take Armin’s rook. Armin quickly retaliated with his knight, smiling as he took her pawn off the board.

“No, he’s only in his late 20s-“

“That’s ten years older than we are, Eren.” Armin cut in.

“And besides,” Eren continued, ignoring Armin’s comment, “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know I was supposed to. You guys have plenty of new friends I haven’t met yet. I just didn’t know it was a big deal that I made a friend.”

Mikasa gave a small smile. “Not a big deal that Eren Jaeger made a friend? What universe are you living in?” She joked smugly. Armin giggled and Eren rolled his eyes.

“You guys can meet him sometime if you really want to. I don’t know if you’ll like him, though. He’s pretty quiet, and whenever he does talk, it’s always either smug and sarcastic as hell or blunt to the point where I can’t actually tell if he’s joking or not.”

“No wonder you’re friends with him,” Armin joked. “Each of you are the only one willing to be near the other.” Armin laughed again, leaning his shoulder into Eren’s, before turning back to the chess board and picking up his queen .

“Ha-ha,” Eren rolled his eyes. “You’re a real comedian, Armin. You should go into it professionally. Maybe then you can impress that Annie girl-“ Eren was cut off from his taunting by the clatter of a small wooden queen hitting the table and a firm punch to the shoulder from Armin.

“Hey!” Eren rubbed at his arm, frowning briefly before shooting Armin a sly smile. “So, it’s true then? You like Annie?”

Armin began to argue back and Mikasa sipped her coffee and smiled gently at the sound of her boys arguing. Eren felt he had successfully changed the subject.

 

Eren didn’t know why he didn’t want to talk about Levi with them. Maybe he just wanted to have something for himself for once. Since his parents had adopted Mikasa, he hadn’t kept a secret for longer than a few days. She was his best friend, and he would always tell her everything, whether because he wanted to, or because she would beat him up until he did. But they were in college now. Maybe it was time that they started working toward becoming independent of one another. And keeping Levi to himself would be the first step.

* * *

 

_hey- what’s the best pizza place around here?_

Eren stared at the glow of his cellphone screen for probably well over a full minute, debating whether or not he should send it. His roommate, Jean, was doing homework at his desk and singing along to some Adele song loudly. The RA, Reiner, would probably be along any second to make him shut up. He had to get out of here. He pressed send.

When Jean began singing a particularly off-key high note, Eren grabbed his jacket and Levi’s scarf and went to go sit in the commons, where Reiner and Bertholdt were playing quietly on the decades-old foosball table. Just as he sat on the arm of one of the loveseats, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

New message!

_Petra’s Pizza._

Eren smiled at his phone as he typed out a quick “dinner?” and let himself fall back onto the seat of the couch, his legs still dangling off of the edge. Reiner barked out a laugh from the other end of the room.

“Who’s the girl, Jaeger?” He asked in his usual booming voice. Half the hall had probably heard that.

Eren blinked at them. “He’s not a girl…?” He presented the statement as a question before he realized what Reiner had intended. His face turned red as he opened his mouth to rectify his mistake, but before he could let Reiner know that, no, nothing was actually happening between him and Levi, Reiner laughed again, louder.

“It’s fine, Jaeger. We’re pretty open-minded here.” He turned and winked at Berthold from across the foosball table, and Bertholdt blushed a deep red from forehead to chin.

“It’s not… Yeah, thanks. Cool.” Eren avoided their eyes and shoved himself up to his feet. He lifted his hand as a means of saying goodbye and left his dorm.

~

“Are you serious?” Eren laughed.

Levi looked up from the slice of pizza he had been delicately cutting with the plastic knife provided to him by the tired-faced teenagers of Petra’s Pizza.

“Mm?” Levi hummed, his eyebrows raised and the corners of his mouth quirked up.

“You really eat pizza with a fork?” Eren asked with a playful smile before taking a bite out of his own slice. Levi stared at him for a few moments.

“It’s greasy.” He said by way of explanation.

Eren scoffed. “Isn’t that kind of the point?”

Levi snorted and turned his attention back to his plastic fork and knife.

“I was under the impression,” Levi began, slicing into his pizza, “that the point of eating food was sustenance.”

“You’re no fun.”

Levi ate a bite of pizza off of his fork carefully, staring challengingly at Eren as he chewed. He swallowed and Eren watched his throat before he realized how creepy he must seem. He gave his attention back to his pizza.

“If you don’t find me entertaining, then what are we doing here?” Levi murmured, staring at Eren deliberately. Eren focused very hard on not blushing.

“I said that’s you’re not fun,” Eren began before biting into his pizza. “Not that I don’t think you’re entertaining,” he finished, his mouth still full. Levi grimaced.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Levi said firmly with the voice of an adult who had dealt with one too many misbehaved children in his lifetime. Eren rolled his eyes, very familiar with that particular voice.

As Eren went to take another bite of his pizza, he felt a buzz from the back pocket of his pants. He very pointedly grabbed a napkin, raising his eyebrows and staring at Levi, who smirked and nodded. After cleaning his hands, Eren took out his phone and let out a sigh when he saw who it was from.

“What is it?” Levi asked, tapping his fingers lightly against his glass of water.

“My roommate has apparently banned me from the room tonight. He is, and I quote: ‘getting some, so back off.’ It’s the first day of classes tomorrow and he’s locking me out of my room! God, sorry, I need to find somewhere to stay tonight. I should probably get going anyway.” Eren began to scoot his chair back.

“You could stay with me.” Levi offered, carefully keeping his eyes trained on his water.

“W-with you? Like, for the night?”

“No, just for a few minutes, then it’s out to the streets with you.” Levi deadpanned.

“Are you sure that’s okay? I mean, I don’t want to intrude. I can stay with my friends…”

“In those 8-by-10 foot dorm rooms? Good luck finding a friend with enough space.” Levi snorted and took a sip of water.

“If you’re sure it’s okay-“

“I wouldn’t have offered if I hadn’t been sure, Eren.”

Eren stared at Levi for a few moments before making a decision. He really didn’t know the man all that well, but he was sure that Levi would never let Eren fall to harm. Eren also really liked the guy. He wasn’t sure what it was about Levi, but something about him made Eren feel protected, safe. Eren’s instincts weren’t as good as they could be, but they hadn’t led him too astray so far. And he really, really did like Levi.

“That sounds really nice.”

The first few minutes were  awkward. It would still be a while before Eren knew he would be tired enough to sleep, and he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. He shuffled around the entryway of the apartment as Levi wandered into the kitchen and started up his coffee maker. When he had finished, Levi turned and leaned against the kitchen counter, watching Eren who was lingering on the other side.

“Sit or something. Jesus.” Levi spoke that last word under his breath, but loud enough that Eren could hear it. Eren cleared his throat and moved to sit on one of the stools at the counter.

“Why are you making coffee?” Eren finally broke his silence. “It’s 8:30.”

“To drink.” Levi showed no sign of humor on his face.

“Of course you are.” Eren murmured, scratching at the back of his head. This entire situation felt so surreal. And more awkward than he had thought it would. Though after their last interaction at Levi’s house, he didn’t know why he would think it would end up as anything but awkward. Who knew when he would be tearing off his underwear in the guy’s bathroom again.

The silence stretched on.

Eventually, the coffee finished brewing and Levi gestured a mug in Eren’s direction as a means of offering. Eren nodded, not willing to break the silence. He could hear the ticking of a clock from an adjacent room. The coffee burned Eren’s tongue but Levi seemed to be immune, so Eren didn’t say anything.

This was ridiculous.

“Do you have any movies or anything?” Eren finally asked, his voice tinged with the anger of someone who had just purposely burnt their tongue for the sake of seeming slightly less uncomfortable in the house of an older man he wanted to impress.

“Several, in fact.” Levi said, setting his coffee down and pushing himself off of where he was leaning against the counter. He led Eren into his living room, where there was a small shelving unit that had dozens of DVDs in it, the lowest row containing a few odd VHS tapes. Eren crouched down to look at them as Levi stood behind him with his arms crossed.

“I was going to make fun of you for still owning a VCR but these tapes are actually pretty good movies.” Eren laughed, grazing his index finger over the titles. “You’re really into the classics, huh?”

“Mm.” Levi responded, grabbing up an old copy of Citizen Kane from the bottom shelf. “How about it?”

Eren chuckled. “Maybe something a little lighter.” He pulled out a DVD of The Odd Couple and tossed it at Levi.

“Toss it in, Felix.” Eren laughed as Levi stared at the disc, bemused.

“Why am I Felix?” Levi asked in response as he moved toward the DVD player. Eren sat down on the couch, tossing his arms over the back and throwing out his feet to cross his ankles.

“Have you seen the state of your apartment? I’ve never seen someone so religiously dedicated to cleanliness.” Eren joked. Levi did not respond, but put the disc in and pressed play. He sat down next to Eren on the small couch.

The movie was so familiar to Eren, whose mother had absolutely adored Walter Matthau. He had seen the movie dozens of times throughout his youth, and despite having not seen it in years, Eren found himself mouthing along the lines, smiling fondly at jokes. It was probably this familiarity, mixed with the insufficient sleep that comes with having an awful roommate that led to Eren falling asleep on Levi’s couch.

Eren’s dream was of giants and blood and destruction. His mom was there, too. She was dying again, and he felt just as helpless as the first time. He screamed as he watched a beast consume her.

“Eren.”

Levi’s hand was gently shaking Eren’s shoulder. Blinking, Eren stared at him.

“A nightmare?” He asked quietly, turning back to the television.

Eren stared at him for a few more moments before turning back to watch the movie. Oscar was accidentally making the twins cry. This was his favorite part. He could not bring himself to smile at it anymore.

“Yeah. Was I loud?” Eren had gone through a short period of nightmares after his mother died, during which Mikasa would often wake him up to let him know that he had been yelling.

“Very.” Levi said.

“Sorry.” Eren grimaced. He had really been hoping he wouldn’t do even more to embarrass himself this time around.

“No, it’s... fine. I understand.” Levi’s fingers were fidgeting excessively as he spoke, as if he were trying to tamp down the bumps of his knee. After a few moments, he spoke again.

“Water?”  Levi got up, finally locking eyes with Eren.

“Please, yeah.” Eren watched Levi as he moved toward the kitchen. Though Levi seemed uncomfortable with the whole situation, he knew well enough what to do. Eren gripped at a throw pillow and tried to force his heart to calm down. He thought of things he liked. The tail-end of spring. Taking walks. His friends. Levi. Levi, in his mind was a separate entity from his friends. He thought of taking his walks with Levi, getting coffee with Levi. He wondered why being with Levi felt so different from being with Mikasa or Armin.

Levi returned with a glass of water and leaned over Eren to place the glass on the side table. As Levi’s face passed Eren’s, Levi slowed. And that was when Eren kissed him.

It had felt like the natural thing to do in the moment. As Eren’s lips gently met Levi’s, Eren realized why Levi was so different to Mikasa and Armin. Eren liked Levi. Eren wanted to be with Levi. The mental ‘oh!’ of recognition of this fact vocalized itself as a soft moan in Eren’s throat.

After what was probably a second or two, but what felt like much longer, Levi’s lips began moving in tandem with Eren’s. As Levi deepened the kiss, he brought his hand, still cool from the glass he had been holding, to cup Eren’s cheek. His tongue licked hesitantly at the edge of Eren’s lip, and Eren accepted it covetously. Eren’s hand reached out to grab Levi’s waist, pulling the shorter man onto his lap. There, he rubbed his hand against Levi’s thigh slowly.

Levi bit gently on Eren’s lip and Eren let out another moan, louder this time. His fingers dug into Levi’s thigh and the kiss grew more feverish, the only sounds in the room the quiet hum of the television and the sound of shallow breaths broken by the meeting of their mouths.

Levi broke the kiss suddenly, breathing heavily as he rested his forehead against Eren’s. Eren’s eyes were still closed, but he was smiling lightly as he breathed. Finally, Levi broke away and flipped himself over off of Eren’s lap to sit on the couch next to him. Eren’s eyes finally opened and as he looked at Levi, his smile disappeared. Levi was staring at the ground, his eyebrows knitted and a small frown firmly in place. His face flushed with embarrassment.

“Sorry. Again.” Eren whispered.

“Get out.” Levi’s voice was strong and emotionless. Eren blanched. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He blinked at Levi dumbfounded for what felt like minutes before he found the courage to speak again.

“Did I do something-“

“Out.” Levi repeated sharply, cutting him off.

“Can I ask why?” Eren scratched hard at his own thigh now, trying to relieve himself of the dull ache now occupying his jeans in such an awkward moment.

“You need to leave.” Levi’s tone carried a heavy absoluteness.

 “Why?” Eren demanded, now impatient with Levi’s avoidance.

Levi gave a short, derisive laugh. “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough, I have no doubt,” Levi said in a low voice. Eren watched as Levi’s hand snaked up to rub inconspicuously at his own groin.

“But you were into it,” Eren yelled, gesturing at Levi’s hand, “You’re not making any sense!”

“Trust me when I say, Eren, that this thing is not going to happen.”

 Eren, frustrated, got up from the couch and strode to the door, wrenching it open and slamming it shut. 

Now alone, Levi glanced at the glass of water collecting condensation on the table. He brought his fingers to the glass surface, wiping his thumb against its wetness. Very suddenly, he shoved the glass with the tips of his fingers and let the glass and its contents fall to the floor.

* * *

 

In the end, Mikasa was the one to take in Eren for the night. Armin had been at a party that night and all of his texts were misspelled, a sure sign that he had been drinking. So, Eren decided to risk trying to spend the night in a girl’s dorm. After sneaking past her RA, Eren entered Mikasa’s dorm quietly, much to the quiet annoyance of Mikasa’s roommate, Annie, who left with a quiet huff when Eren sat down next to Mikasa on her small bed.

Eren stifled angry tears as Mikasa pulled him close to her side and rested her head on his shoulder. After a short moment, Eren let his head fall onto hers and sniffed lightly.

“What happened?” Mikasa demanded in a whisper, her voice muffled in the fabric of his shirt.

“Nothing. I made a mistake. It won’t happen again.” A tear brimmed over and Eren sighed heavily, bringing his sleeve to wipe it away. He moved his hands to his closed eyes and rubbed until he saw spots. “Thanks for letting me stay here. Annie looked pretty mad.”

“She always looks mad,” Mikasa responded quietly.

“Glad I’m not the only one who has to suffer through an awful roommate.” Eren sniffed as he gave a short laugh. “You know how much Jean is into you, right?”

“I wish I didn’t, to be honest,” Mikasa chuckled. She could feel Eren smiling into her hair. After a pause, the smile had gone.

“God, I’m such an idiot,” Eren groaned.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Mikasa asked again.

“Probably not,” Eren answered, falling back onto the bed.

“Sleep, then,” Mikasa said, moving to lie behind him on the small twin bed. There wasn’t nearly enough room for both of them on the creaky mattress, but Eren still felt comfortable on it, Mikasa’s right arm slung over his waist, her left hand brushing through his hair. He felt safe. She had always promised his parents she would protect him, and here she was, fulfilling that promise. Eren felt like it wasn’t because of a promise that she always seemed to be looking after him, though. She just cared.

Eren slept.

~

The sound of some electro-pop song woke Eren from a dreamless sleep. Mikasa’s alarm. Eren rubbed his eyes and blinked until the fuzziness of sleep left his vision. Mikasa was at her cramped desk, typing away at her laptop.

“What time is it?” Eren slurred drowsily. Touching his face, he realized he had fallen asleep on the string of his sweatshirt and it had left an impression across his cheek. He yawned and shoved himself up to sitting.

“It’s 7:30,” Mikasa said, glancing back at him. “You slept through my first alarm. When is your first class?” Eren stumbled off of her bed, scrambling for his worn-out sneakers.

“7:30? Shit, shit, my first class is at eight. Shit.” Eren was sitting on the ground, trying to tie his shoes, but his hands would not coordinate with one another.

“What class is it?” Mikasa asked calmly, still looking at her computer, clearly unconcerned with Eren’s frenzy.

“It’s, um,” Eren flipped through Mikasa’s sheets looking for his phone, which had evidently fallen out of his pocket during the night.  He shook the device out of the wrinkled sheet. “Uh, criminology. Thanks for letting me stay the night, I’ll text you later.” He jogged the two steps over to Mikasa’s desk and gave her a kiss on the cheek and ruffled her hair quickly before running out of the room.

When he finally arrived to his own dormitory hall, Eren found that the door to his room was still locked. He open-palm hit the door as loudly as he could, probably waking up a few neighbors in the process. Then, remembering he had both a key and no obligation to be polite and wait for an answer from Jean before entering his own room, Eren unlocked the door and entered. Jean had awoken from the pounding, but the blond-haired person still under Jean’s sheets seemed to have slept right through it.

“What’s the deal, Jaeger? I thought we talked about this,” Jean whispered, glancing nervously at the lump under the sheets of his bed.

Eren rolled his eyes as he grabbed his backpack, haphazardly shoving his laptop and a spare notebook inside. “First off: we never reached an agreement when we had the ‘sleepover’ conversation, so you’re lucky I decided to stay out of here last night, and secondly, I’m running late for my first class and I don’t want to flunk out like you eventually will.”

Jean stammered angrily, blush rising on his cheeks, but Eren had already turned to leave, hitching his backpack over one shoulder. Jean looked anxiously at his bed, then rushed to close the door that Eren had left open.

~

 Luckily, Eren had the good fortune of being served a mandatory campus tour on the second day of Frosh Week, and so he had a vague idea of where his class would be held. He was already five minutes late, but hopefully the professor would be cool about stragglers on the first day. Once he found the right building, he took the stairs two at a time until he found the right hallway. He walked at a quickened pace, glancing at the numbers on each door until he finally found the right class. Before entering, he unlocked his phone and checked the schedule he had the foresight to save as a note a few days earlier and he verified that this was indeed the classroom for Criminology 101.

Shoving his phone into his sweatshirt pocket, Eren rubbed at his face. The impression the sweatshirt string had left was still there. And shit, was he wearing the same sweatshirt as yesterday? No, he was wearing the same outfit he wore yesterday. He lowered his head and sniffed himself surreptitiously, glancing at the other students wandering the hall. The smell was passable, he supposed. He wouldn’t be able to  change it now.

Eren took a deep breath, letting his eyes close as his hand wrapped around the door handle. Exhaling slowly, he entered the class.

“Glad you could join us. Have a seat.”

Eren paled at the distinctive voice.

There, at the front of the room, laser pointer directed at the projector screen where “CRIMINOLOGY 101” was written in large dark blue lettering, was Levi.

Levi was his criminology professor.

Eren paused in the doorway, staring at him, open-mouthed, until he was roused from his staring by a giggle from the middle of the mid-sized class. Eren blinked and closed his mouth.

“Yeah. Yeah.” He mumbled, breaking eye-contact with Levi, who, beyond his usual raised eyebrow, showed no sign of even knowing who Eren was. He turned to find a seat near the back. He sat down in a cold empty seat and let his head fall onto his desk, cushioned by his folded arms. It wasn’t until the guy sitting next to Eren shushed him that Eren realized he was whispering a steady chorus of “oh God, oh no, please God no, oh God…”

From the front of the classroom, Levi cleared his throat.

“Now that we’re all here, let’s begin. Welcome to Criminology 101.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A colossal thank you to my beta, Katie, who is beautiful and perfect and made this story infinitely better.  
> This was an absolute joy to write! I hope you guys liked reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! I have plans for at least one sequel, along with one or two offshoot side-stories, and hopefully I'll get those out to you sooner rather than later.  
> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you guys thought!
> 
> Edit: Okay, so upon the recommendation of a reader, I've decided to make this into just the first chapter of the fic, rather than a standalone fic in a series. The series will stay up because I'm publishing other fics set in this same universe, but the Levi/Eren story will be contained within this fic. Thanks for being understanding! :)


	2. Chapter 2

Eren’s world did not stop spinning for a week.

He couldn’t eat, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. How did he not notice? How could he not tell from the start that Levi was a professor? Everything he had done made sense now. Through his days, Eren would remember snippets of conversation, bits and pieces from every time they had interacted, all pointing to the fact that not only was Levi Eren’s professor, but Levi knew that Eren would be in his class. So why had he done it? Why had Levi continued to speak with him?

That first day of class, Eren left the room as quickly as he could, not even bothering to put his things into his bag and hauling them by hand. He was so close to freedom, but he was stopped. Eren was certain he would be sick.

“Eren. A word, please.” Levi was standing at the podium in the front of the classroom, looking very deliberately at the clipboard in his hands.

“Yes?” Eren’s voice cracked conspicuously, and Levi turned to look at him, his expression serious.

“I trust you will have the good discretion to not mention anything to your classmates, my superiors, or anyone else?” Levi spoke in a clipped, clear voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“I have your word?” Levi asked, turning back to his clipboard.

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir.”

“Yes, Professor Rivaille?” Eren tried.

“You can still call me Levi. Did you not hear when I introduced myself to the class?” Eren did not respond. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have, would you.”

“Can I leave, please?” Eren asked, the tone of his voice suggesting he was seconds away from getting on his knees and begging.

“Hm,” Levi hummed, making a ‘shoo’ motion with his free hand.

Eren had almost reached the outside of the classroom, he was seconds away from being able to take a breath.

“And Eren?” Levi called out quietly, “I still want that scarf back.”

Eren paused with his hand on the door, not bothering to turn back as he nodded, and then, with a shove that felt too heavy against his palms, he was out of the classroom.

Eren thought that getting out of the classroom would somehow bring him some sort of relief, let him catch his breath, but even now as he quickened his furious pace to the glass doors that would finally get him out of this building, Eren still felt like a drowning man unable to surface. His breath was coming in gasps now, and Eren stumbled over the steps leading down to the sidewalk outside of the building. Desperate to sit, Eren surveyed the courtyard for a bench, a tree to lie under, anything. There was a small wooden bench maybe twenty feet to his right. Fighting the dizziness in his head and choking down breaths, Eren made his way to it on uncertain, shaky legs and let his backpack fall to the ground as he sat. Eren finally managed to take in a breath as he let his head fall between his legs. He was dying. Eren was dying, alone on this bench, making himself look like an idiot in front of the dozens of people who it seemed were all staring straight at him.

“Get yourself together. You’re not dying. You are not dying.” Eren whispered to himself, his white-knuckled fingers lacing together too tightly over the head still between his knees. After 10 or so minutes of this, with intermittent utterances of “ _You’re not dying_ ” Eren surreptitiously wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, picked up his backpack, and made his way back to his dorm.

On his way into the main door of the dorm building, Eren passed by Jean, who was making his way out with a shit-eating grin plastered onto his face. When he met Eren’s eyes, his smile fell.

“Whoa, whoa, are you okay?” Jean asked, grabbing Eren’s arm when Eren tried to ignore him. Eren tore his arm away and glared at Jean.

“I’m fine, Kirschtein,” Eren growled, pushing the door open with unnecessary force. “Nice hickey, by the way,” he called out over his shoulder, watching as Jean’s mouth popped open, his hand flying to his neck. Usually something like that would have been worth at least a chuckle, but Eren just kept walking, feeling cruel for having pointed it out. When he finally reached his door, he could not steady his hands long enough to get the key into the lock. Luckily, the door was opened for him.

“Armin, why are you here?”

Armin’s face filled with concern as he ushered Eren inside and sat him on the bed.

“I wanted to talk to you. You sounded upset last night, and, if I’m being honest, you look terrible.”

“Not as bad as you. How much did you drink last night?” Eren tried for a joking tone, but his voice came out aggressive and accusatory.

“Don’t deflect, Eren,” Armin said seriously, sitting down on Jean’s bed to face Eren directly. “Something happened with you and Levi, right? Do you want to talk about it?”

Eren stared at Armin, bemused. “How did you know?” Armin ignored the question.

“Has he hurt you, Eren?” Armin demanded.

“I- No. I don’t want to talk about it.” Eren fought the sluggishness of his still recovering mind, trying to come up with something he could use as an explanation. He had promised Levi that he wouldn’t breathe a word of what happened between them to anyone, and despite how he might be feeling at this moment, he wasn’t about to ruin the man’s life by breaking that promise.

Armin let out a sigh and moved to sit down next to him.

“Do you want me to stay here?” Armin asked quietly, gently bumping Eren’s shoulder with his own. Eren took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly.

“Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks.”

Armin hopped off the bed and reached for Eren’s backpack, unzipping it swiftly and pulling out his laptop.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m in no shape to go on one of those dumb walks with you, so we’re going to sit here and watch a movie, and I’m going to take some more ibuprofen and fall asleep on you.” Armin said, handing Eren his laptop and going to Eren’s cabinet, pulling out a small white pill bottle.

Eren laughed. “Was Armin Arlert out partying last night? How very un-valedictorian of you.”

“First off, I was salutatorian, you know that, and second, I actually had a very nice time. I had maybe one beer, a glass of wine. It was very classy.” Armin insisted as he struggled with the childproof cap.

“You know that you reek of tequila, right?” Eren asked. Rolling his eyes, he took the bottle from Armin and easily took the cap off. As he handed it back to Armin, who dry-swallowed an amount of pills that was clearly more than the recommended dosage, Eren looked at his hands. At least he had stopped shaking.

“Okay, so maybe someone took a bodyshot or two off of me. Or I did it off them? I can’t actually remember. I don’t want to, to be honest.” Armin sat back down.

The two sat in relative silence as they scrolled through the list of available movies to watch. Eren picked one at random, something that looked like it would be mildly funny and more than distracting enough. As the opening credits began, something struck Eren.

“How did you get in here?” He asked, pausing the film. Armin took a moment to respond, blinking at the protagonist smiling on the screen for a few seconds.

“Jean let me in, obviously. You probably ran into him on your way in.”

“Jean let you in?”

“That’s what I just said, yes.” Armin clicked play.

“You’re not, like,” Eren made a face, “ _friends_ with him or anything, right?”

“I hardly know him, Eren, but you really shouldn’t be so critical of Jean. He seems like a really nice guy.”

“Armin, he kicked me out last night so he could bring some, I don’t know, hook-up back here last night. The guy is a colossal douchebag,” Eren insisted.

“Let’s just watch the movie, alright?” Armin grabbed at the laptop and shifted the angle of the screen so it was more suited to his height. Eren sat back with a quiet _hmph_ and resigned himself to allowing in the comfort of a friend.

 

* * *

 

Despite the efforts of his friends, and his growing familiarity with the rhythm of college life, Eren was still visibly on edge. While the rest of his classes were easy enough, Levi’s class was not only the source of his undying anxiety for more personal reasons, but it was also one of the most difficult classes he had ever enrolled in. A nagging voice in the back of Eren’s head would insist every so often that he should probably consider switching out, but the louder, meaner voice echoing between his ears would always remind Eren very politely that if he dropped out now, he would just be letting Levi win. If Levi could tell how deeply this whole thing had affected him, if Eren showed any side of weakness now, Levi would win. And he did not want to let that absolute prick win this battle. Beyond that, Eren also found out after a short meeting with an advisor that Criminology 101 was a requirement if he really wanted to get into Rosa Maria’s criminology program. So, ultimately, Eren decided to soldier through the class.

Armin had taken to visiting Eren’s dorm almost daily, now that he and Jean appeared to have become something resembling friends.

“I don’t understand why you don’t just switch out, if the class is so hard.” Jean said bleakly from his bed, where he was lying on his back and tossing a baseball in the air to himself. Armin sat in Jean’s computer chair, his feet kicked up as he played on his tablet and rolled his eyes at the two of them. Eren and Jean had been forced into a tentative truce by Armin, who had gotten tired of listening to them argue constantly. While this truce did manage to kill off most of the genuine animosity, the two of them still got into fruitless spats every dozen or so minutes.

“Of course you wouldn’t get it, Jean. You’re a natural-born quitter," Eren shot back, not taking his eyes off the computer screen where his half-written essay was staring him down. Eren continued, whispering to himself. “Maybe I’m thinking about it too hard. Maybe I need a distraction.”

“Get a job.” Jean’s sarcastic remark was met by a kick to his leg by Armin’s foot.

“You guys are absolutely the worst to be around, you know that?” Armin flicked at his screen lazily. Then, eyes widening, Armin sat up straight. “Wait. Eren, that’s it! Get a job!”

“Wow, thanks for the support, Armin,” Eren deadpanned.

“No, I’m serious! Jean, you work at that café, right? Corporal Coffee?” Armin asked excitedly. Jean let the ball he had just thrown into the air fall back into his hands and sat up straight.

“No, no, why should I hook Jaeger up with a job? He hates me! Work is the only place I can get away from him,” Jean pleaded with Armin

“I’m right here, Jean,” Eren cut in. The two ignored him.

“Please,” Armin asked, making a show of batting his dark eyelashes over his light blue eyes. “For me? He’ll work hard, I promise. You know he’ll work hard.” Armin grabbed Jean’s hands and looked into his eyes, trying to look as innocent as possible.

Eren turned to watch Jean’s reaction. The grimace bled slowly from Jean’s face, replaced by pleading, and finally a diffident sort of capitulation. Jean let out a groan and tossed his baseball at Eren a little too roughly, and Eren caught it only just in time to prevent a black eye.

“Fine!” Jean finally said as dramatically as he could. “I’ll ask if they’re hiring and maybe I’ll throw your name out there or something.” Eren stared at Jean, who, despite still looking aggravated at having been bullied into helping Eren, nodded firmly in Eren’s direction before raising his hands and motioning at Eren to pass him the ball. Eren gave an underhanded toss, too high, but well within Jean’s ability to catch it, and Eren nodded in return.

“What made you decide that I need a job, anyway, Armin?” Eren asked over the returning sound of Jean’s baseball slapping against his open palms.

“You said it yourself. You need a distraction. I think that getting a job will get your mind off of-“ Armin paused and glanced at Jean before bringing his hand to cup his lips and mouthing the word “ _Levi._ ” Jean seemed not to have noticed. “Besides, you could use the money, and you’ve only ever really done farm work and volunteered at your dad’s clinic. It would probably make sense for you to get some customer service experience.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Eren muttered, turning back to his laptop and staring the essay down. After a moment of consideration, he moved his cursor and opened up a new document. His keyboard clicked quietly as he titled the page. A sharp laugh came from the other side of the room.

“You don’t have a résumé?” Jean scoffed. Armin leaned over and smacked Jean with his tablet.

“Shut up and help him,” Armin said exasperatedly.

* * *

 

As it turned out, the café had just opened up a new barista position only days before, and Eren was quick to submit an application along with his shiny new résumé. After a short, informal interview and a few days of anxious waiting and irritated reassurances from Jean, Eren was called back and offered a position. While Eren was slightly concerned about not knowing anything about coffee or how to make it, he still beamed at Jean when he got the news and offered him a rare high-five.

His new boss, Auruo Bossard, while nice enough, seemed to be a little bit on the odd side. Something of a braggart and a little more of the reminiscent type, Bossard spent most of the interview letting Eren know that he shouldn’t be intimidated by him because of his past military experience, and finished the interview by accidentally spilling his hot coffee down the front of his shirt. Eren pretended not to notice. This, mixed with Eren’s JROTC experience, Jean insisted, was probably what got Eren the job.

Eren, whose knowledge of coffee drinks did not extend beyond black coffee and mochas, found the sheer number of drinks he had to memorize to be more difficult than he would have thought. The employees kept a cheat sheet on every counter, but Eren found that he hated relying on the cheat sheets for help. After a week, he demanded Jean help him study different drinks, quizzing him on what tasted best with what so he could make recommendations to slower customers. Jean agreed, Eren assumed, because it would mean Eren would eventually owe him help with something later on.

The work was nice. The rhythm of the whirring machines, the blender, the whoosh of whipped cream spray, they all blended into a calming daily song for Eren. He found that Armin had been right. A good, pacifying distraction was really all he had needed after all. His training seemed to pass right by him and after a few practice sessions with Jean, Eren felt significantly more confident as a barista.

After a few weeks of working pretty regularly after school, Eren offered to try out opening. Corporal Coffee opened at 5:00, so he could get in at least two and a half hours of work before school. Eren wasn’t necessarily an early riser, but he did like the idea of having his nights free again.

Eren arrived a few minutes early for his first time opening. The light was coming from Auruo’s back office, and Krista, an absolute angel of a shift manager who had been working at the shop since her freshman year, waved to him from behind the counter, her fingers covered in chalk from updating the chalkboard that held the day’s specials. Eren shook out his cold, stiff hands, trying to get feeling back into them. Krista gave him a concerned look.

“You should buy some gloves, Eren! It’s only going to get colder. If you want, you can borrow mine once you get off,” Krista offered with a smile. Eren shook his head with a laugh.

“You’re so sweet, Krista, but, no, I’ve got some back in my dorm. Just sort of forgot myself this morning I guess. This is the earliest I’ve gotten up in a while.” Eren made his way behind the counter and into the back room, where he hung up his jacket, threw on his apron and washed his hands. When he came back out behind the counter, Krista had already gone out to the seating area, flipping chairs off of tables and rearranging sofas.

“What can I do to help?” He called to Krista, who was humming along lightly to the indie music that always seemed to be playing in the shop.

“Well, I just finished counting the money and opening the register – I can teach you how we do that tomorrow – so I guess just clean behind the counter.” Eren grabbed a rag and began cleaning the machines.

“Do you usually get a lot of people this early in the morning?” Eren asked Krista after a few moments of companionable silence.

“Not as much as we’ll be expecting two hours from now. The early mornings are slower, but we do have our regulars,” Krista explained, a lilt in her voice that seemed unnaturally pleasant for this early in the morning. Coming from anyone else, Eren would have thought it annoying, but he could not imagine a world where anyone would think Krista Lenz was annoying. Though Krista was three years Eren’s senior, he still felt this overwhelming need to protect her. He had never seen her be anything but kind to coworkers and customers alike, and she handled irate customers on the receiving end of flubbed drink orders with ease and grace. Krista Lenz was probably the closest Eren would ever get to meeting an actual saint.

“Are you liking working here so far?” Krista asked as she began wiping down the tables. “It’s been a few weeks now. You seem pretty confident behind an espresso machine.”

Eren chuckled bashfully as he began wiping down the counters. “I do like it. Everyone’s nice, the work is easy enough to lose yourself in, but not so monotonous you want to fall asleep. It’s good. And I never get tired of the smell.”

“I’m glad! You’re great to have around. You’re really a natural at this.”

“It took a lot of practice, actually,” Eren admitted modestly.

“Well, it shows, then. You’re good. And you think the smell is nice now? Wait until November when we break out the peppermint.” Krista stopped wiping at the tables to turn her head toward him and give him a kind smile. Eren smiled back. Turning back to the table, Krista gave it a last swipe with her cloth and evaluated it along with other tables. Giving the lobby a final nod, Krista moved to the door and reached up to the open sign.

“You ready, Eren?”

“No time like the present.”

Krista’s finger flicked the neon “OPEN” sign on.

It took only a minute or so for customers to begin arriving. It started with mostly black coffees and tired faces. Eren supposed that the people who came this early in the morning were the people who needed it most, though.

“I can help whoever’s next!” Eren called out, carefully placing the last dollar bill of the previous order into the register. He finished and looked up, his customer service smile in place. The smile froze and his jaw locked as he made eye contact.

“Twenty ounce house coffee, two sugars, please, Eren.” Levi asked in a low purr. Eren blinked at him for a few seconds before Levi cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows.

“Sorry, yeah- uh, yeah, let me, uh-“ Eren fumbled for a twenty ounce cup.

“You work here now?” Levi asked, taking out his wallet. He paused for a moment before adding, “That apron looks good on you.”

Eren froze with his permanent marker against Levi’s cup and flashed his eyes up at Levi’s. Levi’s eyes wandered up to Eren’s from wherever they had been lingering on Eren’s body. Suddenly Eren was angry, furious. His options for what he wanted to do to Levi that would not result in the loss of his job were slim. Refocusing, Eren struck a black line onto the side of the cup with his marker as he began to write the L in “Levi” on the cup. His fingers stuttered for a moment on the pen, then, turned the black line into an “F.” In his bold, rigid handwriting, Eren slowly spelled out a different name onto Levi’s cup.

He wordlessly took Levi’s $1.50 and glared at the dollar Levi stuck slowly and deliberately into the tip jar, before stepping to the side. Eren took the three steps to the coffee dispenser and watched the dark liquid as it approached the top. He shook in the sugar with as much vindictive energy as one could, and placed a lid firmly on top.

Why was Levi here now, in Eren’s sanctuary, the place that Eren had specifically gone to in order to try and forget everything that had happened between them? Eren had been carefully avoiding Levi for weeks now.

“Levi?” Eren held out the coffee over the counter, as Levi approached. Eren handed him the coffee and watched as Levi grabbed it, watched Levi’s eyes flicker to the words written on the cup, to Eren’s face, then back to the cup. There, on the side of Levi’s coffee, Eren had written in all capital letters, “FUCK YOU.”

Levi gave the most genuine laugh that Eren had ever heard him give.

“I’ll see you in class, Eren.”

“You too, sir.”

 

* * *

 

Things continued like this. Eren, because of his insistence upon working mornings to his boss earlier, was scheduled mornings on a regular basis. Every morning Levi would come in, and every morning Levi would order the same coffee, would pay the same amount, would tip one dollar, and would stare at Eren, regardless of whether or not Eren was working the counter. 

Most days, Eren would write Levi’s name on the cup. Other days, when Levi was being especially opaque in showing interest in Eren, he would write things like “ASSHOLE” or “DICK” or “FUCKNECK.” Some days he would just write “SORRY.”

They settled into a schedule, dealing with one another with an ease that should have been harder than it was. Eren knew what to expect when it came to Levi, knew that Levi was probably doing his weird semi-flirtations to fluster Eren, because the asshole seemed like the kind of guy that would get a kick out of that kind of thing. He had before.

Eren was finally starting to get a grasp on their tentative relationship. One morning in his dorm, as he got ready for his morning shift, Eren spotted the emerald green of Levi’s scarf sticking out from underneath his laundry basket. Steeling himself, Eren grabbed it and stuffed it in his bag. He would give it back to Levi at work today.

He got to work. He waited, hyper-aware of the scarf he had placed under the register. He rubbed it with his fingertips each time he heard the jingle of the door opening, and each time, he put on his smile and turned to look at the new customer. Each time, the person failed to be Levi.

For the first time since Eren had begun working, Levi did not show up for his morning coffee.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t without hesitancy that Levi sidestepped his usual visit to Corporal Coffee that morning. Levi had been avoiding it for weeks, but knew that a casual meeting with the head of his department was slowly becoming inevitable. Each time he interacted with Eren, he could feel a crack forming in the structure of his character. He could feel his sense of what was right begin to fracture. So, one morning when he’d run out of excuses, he knocked on Erwin Smith’s office door and entered without waiting for an answer. Erwin stared at Levi as he made his way toward the seat facing Erwin’s desk and sat down without preamble, but did nothing to stop him. Erwin was, apparently, used to this by now.

“Do you remember,” Levi began, breaking the silence that usually began these sessions, “when I was an undergrad student here?”

“Of course,” Erwin smiled, his eyebrows knitting together confusedly. “Why would I forget that? We were very close.”

“Were we too close?” Levi shot back. He looked into the unnatural blue of Erwin’s eyes. His face, once the object of Levi’s infatuation, had aged considerably in the last 10 years. The blonde of his hair was thinning out to gray, and the laugh lines around his eyes were growing only deeper.

Erwin looked at Levi for a long, uninterrupted moment before he stood up and walked around his desk, carefully sitting on its edge and facing his colleague.

“Elaborate.” Erwin searched Levi’s eyes as though unwilling to wait for his explanation. Levi took a deep breath as he wondered how to begin such a conversation.

“When I was a few months from getting my BA, I came into your office a number of times to discuss admissions into the different graduate program options available to me. We never really seemed to talk about that, though. We always got off-topic, and there was always something there, something on the edge of the room that was just sort of waiting. Was that just me or did you feel that, too?” Levi spoke uncharacteristically quickly through this speech, still watching the light of the room filter in and reflect off of Erwin’s eyes as Erwin stared on.

“Are you asking me if I, as your professor, was… attracted to you, as a student?” Erwin asked haltingly.

“Yes,” Levi stated simply, not daring to move his gaze. “And if you recognized that I wanted you, too.”

Erwin blinked.

“I’m married now, Levi, you can’t-“

“We’re talking in the past tense, Erwin. This was over 10 years ago. I’m 34. We’re colleagues. Something has come up and I need to know. Did you ever, even for a moment, consider pursuing me?” Levi spoke directly, past the point of fearing Erwin or his authority. Erwin pursed his lips and folded his fingers together. Levi watched his knuckles whiten.

“Please,” Levi whispered.

“Why does this matter now?” Erwin asked quietly. The startling blue of his eyes was now hidden from Levi’s view, shadowed by Erwin’s lowered head and the hands he had brought to his face.

“It does,” Levi answered. Erwin tilted his head, meeting the dull gray of Levi’s eyes with a quiet intensity.

“I did consider… pursuing you, very briefly,” Erwin began, his eyes flickering between each of Levi’s, his voice coming out at a near-whisper. “You were young and interested, and I was older and lonely, and I knew that getting you would be easy. But every time you came into my office, you would start by talking about your future, as if that were the only thing that mattered. And I would think to myself: _what would something like this do to his future?_ Would he still want to become a professor, would our relationship ever develop, would he drop out? All of these questions would run into my mind, and every single time, I would be stuck, wondering, is it worth it?”

Levi watched Erwin’s stoic face carefully.

His question had been given an answer but it was the wrong one. He had wanted to hear how Erwin regretted not pursuing him, how Erwin had only stopped himself because he thought Levi wouldn’t be into it. He had wanted to be assured that his feelings were the correct ones. And Erwin had failed in this.

“Shit,” Levi laughed humorlessly. He dug his fingers into the arms of the chair and shoved himself up, nodding in Erwin’s general direction as he made haste to the door.

“Levi?” Erwin asked from his spot on the edge of the worn mahogany desk.

“Mm?” Levi slowed but did not stop, determined to leave, to breathe, to allow himself to think straight.

“Is he worth it?”

Levi’s foot stuttered against the floor as his hand reached for the door handle. He let his hand move the few extra inches and gripped it tightly, but could not make his wrist rotate, could not make his arms pull the door open. Levi gritted his teeth and shut his eyes as tightly as the meager muscles of his face would allow. Still facing the door, Levi responded silently to the question, his lips moving to shape the words, but allowing no sound out.

“I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

Eren knew he had no right to be angry, but he was. He felt as though he had been stood up. He glared at Levi through his lecture, waiting for Levi to meet his eyes, but it didn’t happen. Levi seemed to be looking at every face but his own. For the full hour of his class, Eren stared at Levi, barely paying attention to the words coming out of his mouth, but watching his eyebrows twitch, and his eyes blink slowly. Levi did very little pacing, preferring to stay in his little corner, standing behind the podium, only moving to write little notes on the whiteboard behind him. Eren’s hand was wrapped firmly around his pencil, but it made no moves across the paper. Why wouldn’t Levi look at him? Did he not want to acknowledge that he had just broken a tradition that had taken so long for Eren to acclimate to? Eren was certain that he had something to do with the fact that Levi had not come in that morning. So what had he done?

Eren was broken from his hateful reverie by movement from Levi. He spoke as he grabbed a stack of papers off of his podium and handed a few out to each row. He seemed to be explaining an assignment.

“It’ll be due the day after tomorrow. You all should know by now what I expect from you in the way of format and grammar. Two full pages, single-spaced. It covers all that we discussed today, so if you took good enough notes it should be a walk in the park. Once you get the assignment sheet, you’re free to go.”

Eren looked down at his blank notebook page and hastily shut it and put it into his bag. Hopefully he would be able to do some research on the topic online after class.

Levi continued up the aisle as those students who had already received the paper began to file out from the front of the room. Eren, who had remained in his seat in the back row since the first day, watched Levi make his way toward him. When Levi finally reached Eren’s aisle, he grabbed a few papers and placed them on the table. When his eyes rose, they met Eren’s.

Etched into Levi’s face was a sort of melancholic regret that Eren could not place. Eren had not seen it from the front of the class, but up close, as their eyes met, it was obvious that something was wrong with Levi. Eren’s anger ebbed and gave way to sympathy. An errant thought ran through Eren’s head that, if Levi had come in that morning, he would have written “SORRY” on his cup.

Too soon, Levi tore his gaze away, and made his way back to the front of the class. Eren realized he was being stared at by the other people sitting in his row and mumbled an apology as he took a paper and passed the stack down. Eren glanced at the paper.

The heading read “Characteristics of White Collar Crime and Criminals.” Eren could not recall a single detail of today’s lecture. It would be a long night in the library. Eren stuffed the paper between the books in his backpack and zipped it shut, sparing Levi another glance. He was standing at his podium, his hands gripping either side and head hanging slightly, his eyes trained on the corner of the lectern. Taking a breath, Eren stood up and pushed in his chair, making his way toward the front of the classroom. When he finally reached the front of the classroom, the last of his classmates filtering out, Eren opened his mouth to speak. Before he could say anything, Levi’s head shot up and he gave Eren a poisonous look, before facing his podium again. Eren nearly turned his heel to flee, but steeled his resolve, gulped down his fear, and continued forward.

“So, why did you skip out on coffee this morning?” Eren asked, careful to keep his voice level and casual.

“Sorry, wasn’t aware drinking coffee was fucking mandatory,” Levi muttered. He glanced up, past Eren and at the door, now shut behind the last of the students.

“It’s not. You just-“ Eren faltered, searching for the appropriate word, but coming up blank. “I thought we had a thing.”

“’Thing?’ No, Eren, we do not have a _thing_ ,” Levi said, hissing the final word. “We will never have a _thing_.”

“Really? Because it seemed a little bit like a thing when you were sitting in my lap on your couch,” Eren retorted, suddenly angry. Levi’s reply came after a heavy pause.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Levi’s reply was quiet, remorseful. His tone, his demeanor, completely turned around.

“What do you mean?” Eren’s anger had not subsided, but he lowered his voice anyway.

“Someone in my position shouldn’t take advantage of someone in your position,” Levi spoke, more firmly this time.

“You weren’t taking advantage! We were both into it! I was the one who – who kissed you first.” Eren, realizing he had been near shouting, lowered his voice before anyone outside of the classroom heard. Levi scoffed at him.

“Of course you wouldn’t understand. You’re a child.” Levi spat the last word, his narrowed gray eyes looking right into Eren’s green ones.

“I am legally an adult! A consenting adult!”

“Take a philosophy class. Learn the difference between legality and morality, then we can discuss whether or not you’re a fucking child.” Levi’s words were toxic, biting. Each stared at the other for a long moment before Eren broke his gaze to turn and leave the room, fists clenched tightly around the straps of his backpack.

When he got back to his dorm, Eren threw himself into studying white collar crime. He searched for it in the index of his textbook, online encyclopedias, articles, studies, everything he could find. He was passionate about making this essay the best in the class, about exceeding any and all of Levi’s expectations and proving he wasn’t a child. Eren sent out emails to the classmates he knew, asked them if they wanted to compare notes or even essays. He didn’t have to work the next day, and so spent all of his free time in the law library looking for resources. By the end of the following day, his finished essay was as close to perfection as he thought he would be able to get. He re-read the prompt, re-read his essay, a dozen times. Eren could kiss it. It followed the prompt precisely and entirely. When Eren handed it in, he did so with a smug smile.

~

Levi really hated grading papers. He hated assigning them, if he were being honest with himself. Kids didn’t learn shit from papers. Experience was the best teacher. And not to mention, reading the same bullshit shoved out of keyboards and onto word documents over and over for hours was not his idea of a good time. He had a checklist of everything a kid needed to get an A on the paper. He would go through the checklist, subtract for things missing, occasionally add points for extra information, and tally up a total.

Eren’s paper was… different. He had obviously tried harder than usual with this one. Levi liked to save his essays for last. Eren’s essays always left a sweet taste in Levi’s mouth. He wasn’t overly academic in his approach to essays, but he was passionate and confident, and the depth of his beliefs on the topic was visible from start to finish. This essay had no passion. It was exact, to the point. It didn’t contain any ranting run-on sentences or absurd sidenotes. It was actually good. It wasn’t Eren. Levi cringed at Eren’s meticulous closing statement. He glanced at the criteria checklist sitting to the side of the papers on his desk. Eren had done perfectly. He shoved the list under a stack of papers and uncapped his red pen. He delighted in writing every curve of every number of the failing score across the top of Eren’s paper. Levi knew that Eren would come to complain about this. But maybe that was why he did it.

 

* * *

 

“This is bullshit, Levi!” Eren’s voice gave a shallow echo through the small office as he forcefully opened the door and slammed it shut behind him as he approached Levi’s desk. Levi looked up nonchalantly from a stack of tests he appeared to be grading and watched as Eren angrily slammed a few stapled sheets of paper onto his desk.

“Something the matter, Mr. Jaeger?” Levi asked, his taunting voice dripping with cynicism.

Eren pointed furiously at the pile of papers he had just thrown down. “There sure as hell is a problem! What’s this?” Levi moved his gaze from the test he was marking to the red mark on the paper underneath Eren’s finger, which read “55/100.”

“That’s your grade.”

“I’m very well aware of that, Levi. What I’m not aware of is what I did to deserve that grade. I spent all night researching white collar crime in the library, and I wrote the best goddamn essay in your class! I know, I read the others. Ymir got a 70% and her essay was only a page long! Why did you give me a failing grade?” Eren demanded, his voice unwavering in volume.

“Calm down, Eren.”

“Why should I-“ Eren was stopped by Levi’s raised hand. Taking his time, Levi organized the pile of tests he had been grading and paper-clipped them neatly, setting them off to the side as Eren watched with heated impatience.

“I know that you are capable of better than this, Eren.” Eren made to speak, but Levi held his hand up once more and continued. “I’ve seen your work. It’s all passionate, personal. Those are the types of essays I look for from you. They’re good. Moving, even. This? It reads like a book shat it out.”

Eren stared at him angrily, his cheeks reddening as he tried to form a coherent retort. He could think of none.

Levi pushed his chair back away from his desk and pushed himself up to stand with a sigh. Eren watched him as he straightened his jacket and picked an imagined piece of lint off of the sleeve. He paced the perimeter of the desk slowly, stopping in front of Eren, who was facing him warily. Levi was too close. _No, no, not again, no._ Levi reached his hand behind Eren and their chests touched briefly as the distance between them closed. Their faces were inches apart as Eren looked down into his eyes. Then Levi moved back a few inches, and Eren’s paper was suddenly shoved against his chest forcefully, pushing him back into the desk. Eren let out a small grunt as his ass made contact with its edge. Eren’s hands reached up to his own chest to grab the paper, his hands unintentionally catching Levi’s where they lingered against his sternum.

“Fix it.” Levi whispered firmly. Their faces were still so close, too close. Eren could feel the tickle of Levi’s breath against his collarbone. Eren focused on the feelings of Levi’s hands under his own, trapped against his sternum. With every expanse of his chest that came with in inhale, he could feel the slight movement of Levi’s fingertips through the thin fabric of his shirt and the crinkle of the papers.

“You’re an asshole.” Eren breathed. His gaze flickered back and forth between Levi’s gray eyes, each with matching hints of lavender underneath. Levi hadn’t been sleeping well, or perhaps even at all.

“So are you.” Levi countered, his voice little more than a murmur now. Eren, hardly aware of it, began moving to bring their lips together. At his first movement, Levi’s lips crashed against his roughly.

Though Eren had been preparing himself for a slow, lazy kiss like their first had been, Levi’s mouth seemed to be suffering from a different kind of want. His lips were forceful against Eren’s gentle ones, and Eren found himself beginning to move his lips more aggressively. His tongue darted out, and, as if he had been waiting for an invitation, Levi’s own tongue met his violently. Within moments, one of Levi’s hands snaked itself out of Eren’s grip and moved to tug Eren’s hair desperately. Eren tilted his head and moaned into Levi’s mouth, and Eren’s hands abandoned Levi’s and the papers, letting them fall to the floor with a quiet rustle as Eren sharply pulled Levi’s hips against his own and Levi’s other hand moved to grip Eren’s shoulder.

The kiss was jagged, uncontrolled, animalistic. Neither Eren nor Levi was sure who had the upper hand until Levi’s hand trailed down the planes of Eren’s chest to the button of Eren’s jeans. Eren broke the kiss for a sharp intake of breath, only to be met again by Levi’s lips as Levi’s hand unbuttoned Eren’s pants with a practiced precision. As soon as the button was undone, Levi’s hand dug down the front of Eren’s boxer briefs, gripping him roughly. He was already half-hard. Eren let out a short, low moan and a gasp into Levi’s mouth, which had not ceased its precise, strong ministrations. With the fingers of one hand still tugging at Eren’s hair, Levi’s other hand began moving on Eren’s dick, thumbing slowly over the head. Eren’s mouth finally broke away from Levi’s with another moan as Levi’s hand began moving gently in contrast to the hands working through Eren’s hair, and the mouth that was now moving to nibble at Eren’s ear.

While Levi was steadily becoming gentler with his movements, there was still a tension there. Eren could feel Levi holding himself back. So, when Levi bit into Eren’s collar bone just as his fingertips traveled up the length of his dick, it was only natural that Eren would moan a quiet command.

“Please.”

After pausing momentarily, Levi quickly took that as his cue to break Eren down. His mouth sucked at Eren’s neck as his hand trailed up, up, until he finally broke contact with Eren’s cock. Eren let out a pitiful whine at the loss, which was quickly replaced with a moan as Levi’s hips grinded, hard, against Eren’s. Levi’s eyes were flashing up and down Eren, as if there were too much of him to take in at once. Levi’s knee made its way between Eren’s legs and nudged them apart slightly, his dick grinding into Eren’s hip. Eren could feel the stiffness of Levi’s dick through his slacks, as the tip of Eren’s cock peeked out of the band of his boxer briefs. The hand that was, until this moment, gripping Eren’s hair, relinquished its grasp and came down to meet Levi’s other hand at the base of Eren’s shirt. He tugged up quickly, only letting his mouth off of Eren when the shirt was coming off, and he quickly replaced it, working his way down the hollow of Eren’s throat as the obstructive fabric finally made its way over Eren’s head.

Levi’s left hand, having now cleared the obtrusion blocking his path, freely drifted across Eren’s chest. It was much broader than he would have thought it would be. Smoother, too. The only hair on his torso was a small trail of dark hair leading down from his navel. Levi let his index finger ghost over Eren’s nipple, and his mouth grinned against Eren’s neck as he heard the boy let out a moan. As his left hand made quick work of undoing Eren’s already lax composure, Levi’s right hand worked at tugging down Eren’s jeans. Whenever he broke a kiss against Eren’s neck to move to the other side, he found himself entranced with the pink head sticking out of the elastic of Eren’s underwear. He grinded against Eren again as he gave his jeans a final shove down, eliciting a stutter in the whine of Eren’s quick breaths.

Making a decision, Levi began to lower his head. First, to Eren’s nipple, where he licked and sucked and bit gently as Eren moved his hands unsteadily to rest in Levi’s hair. When Levi switched to the other nipple, he could feel Eren’s fingers twitch in his hair as his hips bucked forward ever so slightly. Letting Eren’s nipple out of his teeth, Levi dropped to his knees.

Eren’s head fell back with a moan as Levi pressed light kisses into the crevice of his hip, where the v-shape of Eren’s pelvis ran into his boxer briefs. Levi let his lips brush lightly against the tip of Eren’s cock as he moved to press more gentle kisses to the other side. This earned Levi a shaky, uninhibited, low groan.

“Please,” Eren repeated, his voice cracking.

Happy to oblige, Levi pressed his lips chastely against the head of Eren’s dick as he put his thumbs into the hips of Eren’s waistband and pulled the boxer briefs down carefully, letting them hang just above Eren’s knees. Levi gripped Eren’s hips and pulled his mouth back, letting his eyes run over the sight of his debauched student a final time before he brought his mouth down to wrap around Eren’s cock. He moved down Eren’s length once, experimentally, before realizing his lips were too dry. He pulled off and licked his lips between placing kisses up the underside of Eren’s dick. He hadn’t had a chance to worship a cock like this in years. Finally satisfied, Levi brought his lips around Eren’s cock once more, letting out a gasp himself as Eren gave an uncharacteristically rough tug against Levi’s hair. Levi placed one hand at the base of Eren’s shaft as he brought his other up to meet Eren’s hands in his hair, silently encouraging Eren to tug more as the sounds of Levi’s wet slurping and sucking filled the (thankfully thick-walled) office.

Eren was by no means a quiet participant. Levi prayed that nobody would walk by his door at the wrong moment, because Eren’s moans were growing only louder. Levi pulled his mouth off of Eren’s dick with a _pop_ and looked up to meet Eren’s glazed, half-lidded eyes.

“Shhh…” Levi whispered. He waited for Eren to give a small nod before he went back to Eren’s dick, where he licked a long stripe up its length. He felt Eren shudder under his hands and with another wicked smile, pulled Eren’s hips to meet his mouth. God, did he love sucking dick. Eren’s cock, while not necessarily undersized, wasn’t so long that Levi would choke on it. So, Levi decided to let Eren fuck his mouth. Letting out a small hum around the base of Eren’s dick, Levi kept his head still, letting Eren’s hips do all the work. After guiding Eren through a few thrusts, Eren finally took the hint and began thrusting his hips into Levi’s mouth, slowly at first, but gaining more momentum with each shove. Levi kept his tongue firmly on the underside of Eren’s dick, prizing the feel of it sliding in and out of his willing mouth. After a minute of this, Eren’s hips began stuttering.

“I’m- Levi, I’m-“ Eren was incoherent, but his point got across clearly enough.

“Mm,” Levi moaned as a means of responding, gripping Eren’s hips tighter.

After a few more shaky movements, Eren gave a final thrust and finally came in spurts, filling Levi’s mouth bit by bit. Levi turned his eyes upward and watched Eren’s facial features tighten as he came, watched him take his lip between his teeth and bite hard enough to draw blood, watched a sickeningly cute splotchy pink blush appear on Eren’s chest. Levi swallowed Eren down. Though he tried to catch all of it, he felt some dribble down the side of his mouth as he swallowed down its thick bitterness, pulling off of Eren’s cock gently.

Levi looked back up at Eren again from his spot kneeling on the floor, and Eren was staring back at him, his lips parted slightly, and his eyes wide. Eren’s hands loosened in Levi’s hair and he allowed one to fall limply to his side as the other drifted down the side of Levi’s face. With his forefinger, Eren tilted Levi’s chin up, and with his thumb, Eren swiped at the come on the side of his lips, almost tenderly. He took the hand off of Levi’s face and stared at his thumb for a long moment before bringing it into his mouth and sucking it clean. Releasing his thumb from his mouth, drawing to mind a familiar popping sound, Eren let this hand, too, fall to his side. He looked down at Levi, who was staring back up at those dazed, reverent eyes. Levi, still on the floor, desperately hard, and with some of his student’s smeared come drying on his cheek, was the first to break the silence.

“Well, shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks as always to my beta, Katie, who is a dream and without whom this fic would have ended at the last chapter. This fic is so much fun to write! I have finals this week so once those are over and done with I'll be free to work on the last chapter! I'm really excited!  
> Please tell me what you guys think! I loved how much feedback I got on the first chapter :)


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn’t until Levi was looking up at Eren from his place on the floor, at Eren’s pink-tinged cheeks and the half-lidded eyes meeting his, that Erwin’s words finally came back to him.

_Is he worth it?_

“Eren, I’m so sorry.”

“Mm?” Eren seemed to barely register Levi’s comment, still in a daze.

“That was… selfish of me.” For the first time since the day he met Eren, Levi was finally getting a sense of clarity. Oh, God, what horrible fucking timing his mind had to start working properly.

“I don’t know,” Eren let out a snort and started tucking himself back into his jeans, “it was pretty good for me.” Eren gave a devilish sort of smile and offered his hand to help Levi to his feet. Levi shook his head and stood up on his own. Eren’s smile started to fall.

 The taste of come in Levi’s mouth, enjoyable for a brief second, was now bitter and repulsive. Levi choked back a gag.

“Eren, I know this is going to upset you, but please understand-“

“Are you kidding?” Eren looked somewhere between devastated and furious. “Are you really going to do this _again_?”

“-Please understand,” Levi repeated, “I do want you to know the reasons this time.”

“Fuck off.” Eren struggled to fix his shirt.

“Eren. Please. Sit.” Eren took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, shutting his eyes. “Please.”

Eren took a small step back and hopped up to sit on the edge of Levi’s desk. Levi looked tired, far too tired for having just done some reasonably arduous exercise. Levi’s hair, usually neatly combed, now disheveled, mixed with this sort of manic edge to the clipped ending of each phrase he uttered was almost concerning. He had never seen Levi like this. He hadn’t imagined that Levi could be like this. Levi stared at him for a long time. A receding blush was still visible high on Eren’s cheeks.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Eren said, tossing up his hand in a capitulatory gesture. Levi thanked whatever god was watching them for making Eren slightly less belligerent than usual for this conversation.

“Sucking your dick was a bad decision.”

“Wow, you could try to be a little more delicate about it.”

“I’m not a delicate person. I sucked your dick and it was a mistake. I wronged you. Do you understand how?”

Eren sat in a sulky silence.

“Eren, you’ve repeatedly claimed to be an adult, and I’d appreciate it if you acted like one.”

“Well which one am I? An adult or a child?” Eren demanded angrily. Levi scoffed.

“Well, that’s part of the issue at hand, isn’t it?” Levi muttered. He took a breath and spoke again, louder this time, carefully enunciating each syllable. “For the last few weeks, I’ve been going back and forth thinking about whether or not what I’m doing with you could be justified, whether the damage I could be doing to your future is justified. And it really wasn’t until a few minutes ago that it finally became clear to me that I can’t do this to you.”

Eren’s spiteful grimace began to disappear and was gradually replaced with a look of careful concern.

“When you said that you were being selfish…” Eren began, trailing off and looking at Levi to finish the thought.

“I meant just that. When I look at you, Eren, I see so much potential. You’re not the brightest student I’ve ever had, but you are the most passionate. I have no doubt that you have more than enough drive to succeed if you decided to go into the field. Doing something like this, though, could ruin that. If someone found out, or if it ended poorly, all that potential could be ruined, and it would be entirely my fault. Right now, it’s clear to me more than ever that your future is not worth a few back-alley handjobs.”

Eren stared silently at the floor for a few moments before he responded.

“I can see where you’re going with this, but how would it be just your fault? I mean, I was there, I participated. Why is it your responsibility to decide this and not mine?”

“Because I’m the adult. Because even though you’re an adult in the eyes of the law, the fact that I’m 15 years older than you is still pretty fucked up.” Levi brought a hand up to rub at his temple.

The two sat in silence for a minute that stretched out for hours.

“What are we going to do?” Eren finally asked. “I don’t want to just stop talking to you.”

“You can still talk to me. You’re my student, Eren. I still want you to succeed. That’s why we’re doing this.”

“So, what, we just walk away, act like nothing happened?” Eren asked, scoffing skeptically.

“Think of it however you want. It’s over now. That’s the only part that really matters.” Levi responded. “As long as this stops now and doesn’t happen again as long as you’re a student of mine, you can phrase it however you want.”

“So, after I graduate-“ Eren began.

“Eren, enough.” Levi’s tone was absolute. Eren stared at him, eyes glinting, and then, after a while, nodded his head, slowly.

“It’s for the best.” Eren seemed to be reaffirming this notion to himself.

“For the best.” Levi repeated back to him.

Despite an apparent resolution, the tension still stung at the corners of Eren’s mind. Eren took a few affirming breaths, and he let his eyes fall to the ground, where his perfect paper lay, scattered and torn, the very corner sitting under Levi’s shoe. Eren let out a sharp laugh.

“Can I have that?” Eren pointed to the paper. Levi looked baffled until he looked down. Levi contemplated the paper for a few seconds before finally reaching down to grab it. He weakly tried to collate the papers, clearly beyond the point of saving.

“It’s fine,” Eren whispered, taking them from Levi’s hands. “Goodbye, Levi.”

“Goodbye, Eren.”

The quiet click of the door gently shutting, Eren on the other side, brought a grimace to Levi’s face.

“It’s for the best,” Levi whispered to himself, circling around to sit back at his desk. He stared at the ungraded papers on his desk until the stagnancy polluting the room became too much to bear.

 

Once Eren shut the door lightly behind him, he stood still, just in front of it for a long moment. He let his eyes shut, and he took in deep, shaky breaths until they finally evened out. A walk, that was what he needed. Eren folded the crumpled papers and shoved them into his pocket before turning sharply and making his way toward the nearest exit. The air was cool and crisp and tight in Eren’s throat, but Eren needed the air sharp now. His mind still felt dulled at the edges, his orgasm clouding over the conversation he’d just had. It didn’t feel real. He couldn’t be sure exactly what happened. Eren gulped down breaths and walked nowhere in particular.

What was Eren feeling right now? If someone were to ask him, his first answer would probably have been anger. Why, if Levi was so hell-bent against letting them have this, had he let them both cross that line twice now? Was he determined to make Eren’s life miserable? Eren thought back to how guilty, how weary Levi had looked as he talked Eren down from his immediate reaction of belligerence, as he explained that it was best for both of them. If it was truly best for both of them, why had neither of them come out of the conversation satisfied? Eren had been working hard to suppress his feelings for Levi, only to be handed a treat on a silver platter, then have it yanked away.  Because he really did care about Levi, and, God, what a treat it had been to finally be able to indulge that. Thinking on it, Levi probably felt similarly. You didn’t get that kind of look in your eye from nothing. Levi had thought that what he was doing was selfish, that his own personal pleasure was worthless in expense of Eren’s potential.

Eren supported Levi’s decision. His anger hadn’t disappeared, though. He was still furious that Levi hadn’t made his decision about 10 minutes earlier, that he let Eren get sucked in only to spit him back out again. But Levi was obviously feeling the torque from his decision too. They both wanted this. They both wanted each other. And while this seemed to be putting an end to this now, Eren’s future was not set in stone. Maybe this decision meant that eventually Eren could have something real with Levi, something beyond office quickies and grinding on the couch. Something worth waiting for.

Eren glanced at his surroundings, let himself exhale a slow, warm breath, and made his way back to his dorm, all the while fingering the edge of the tattered papers in his pocket.

* * *

 

Eren’s life continued. Eren felt different in a way that he couldn’t describe, but the world around him remained the same. Go to work, avoid Levi, go to class, avoid Levi, do some homework, hang out with friends, repeat. His life had fallen into a stasis, a stagnant loop. And while this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it certainly wasn’t what Eren had expected his freshman year of college to be like.

Levi’s classes remained unchanged, too. He was still as demanding as ever of his students, and, true to his word, did not give Eren any sort of excessive attention. He called on him if his hand was raised, but beyond that their interactions were limited to Eren handing him finished quizzes and assignments. It was almost painful at first, knowing that Levi was deliberately trying his hardest to act like Eren was simply one of the horde. Eren tried once or twice starting a conversation with Levi, testing the boundaries of the fence Levi had put around their relationship, but Levi stood his ground. His responses were short, clipped, and offering nothing but the bare minimum, and eventually Eren learned not to bother trying. Things gradually got easier. Before Eren even realized it, the quarter was nearing its end.

Eren only had to prepare for two finals, really. His English final had been a take-home essay and would be finished easily enough. His Statistics and Criminology finals, however, required a bit more work. Eren spent every evening of Dead Week with either Mikasa or Armin, making flashcards, quizzing each other, or silently taking notes to prepare for finals. When the time finally came for his Criminology final, he was certain he would pass, just not by how much.

When he entered the classroom, it felt too cold and the fluorescent lights too bright. The dull murmur of a dozen or so students doing last minutes studying at their desks filled the room. Eren found his seat and looked around the room before fishing in his bag for a pencil, and stopping the foot tapping he hadn’t realized he had been doing. After a minute or so of fiddling with his pencil, Levi finally entered the room, and the din quieted to a solemn silence. Levi carried a pile of papers in one arm and wordlessly began handing them to each row. When he finally reached Eren’s row, Eren took the papers and nodded at him. He received the barest hint of a nod in return, and felt a pang at the nervousness sitting low in his stomach.

Eren glanced over the final before he started writing. The multiple choice section looked easy enough. The short answer had one question he didn’t know, but could take a guess at. The essay question mirrored an essay they had written earlier on in the quarter on General Strain Theory. Eren could have laughed. He was going to pass.

Eren worked his way down the first sheet of the packet, then the second, then the third. It was almost automaticity, how quickly and easily he was able to fill in the answers. He had expected to struggle to a degree, knowing how hard Levi could be on his students. But Eren knew this material. He loved this material. This was the first time in his life that something he loved came so easily to him. Eren barely resisted flourishing his pencil as he filled in the final period of his essay. He flipped back through the packet, knowing he should re-check his answers, but it was all so easy, why would he need to? Eren stood up, tucked his pencil into his pocket, and brought his final up to Levi.

“Finished already?” Levi asked in a low voice. Eren looked around the classroom at the filled seats. Apparently he was the first to finish.

“Yep.” Eren nodded, handing the packet over. Levi took it and glanced down the first page, as if he were checking Eren’s answers. Levi set the paper upside-down on the corner of the podium and turned back to Eren and nodded.

“I’ll see you around campus,” Eren offered. Levi hummed in response and turned back down to the papers he was grading.

And that, Eren supposed, was it. He went back to his dorm, laid on his too-small bed and fell into a dreamless sleep. 

* * *

 

Eren’s first quarter at college was finished. All he had to do now was wait for grades to be posted online the following Monday. When he finally turned in his last final, giving a nod, a smile, and a mumbled thank-you to his elderly Statistics professor, Eren left the building and found the blue sky surprisingly visible. He took out his earphones and pushed them into his ears, turning up the volume on his iPod louder than he was usually comfortable with. And he walked. He hadn’t found much occasion to walk as of late. He usually walked to calm himself, to let the business of his life fade into the background. Walking was what tethered him, gave him a sense of normalcy. But recently, every day seemed to have more of the same. Today was the first day in a while that the colors around him weren’t blurred and dulled. Today, even the lightly frosted grass covering the quad seemed like it was in full color. It had very rarely been like that since Levi.

In a lot of ways, Eren was still waiting for Levi. He knew, at a surface level, that nothing was happening between them. That much was obvious from their limited, impassive conversations. Despite this, he had still been holding out hope that Levi would say something, break his silence, confess his love, whatever. But today, with the sky so blue and the day so vivid, he felt like that chain that was breaking. He needed to move on, live his life, let go of this weight and let his future happen. He had been putting it off for too long.  

Eren walked to the beat of the heavy music clawing its way into his ears. He walked until his shoulders, sore from bearing the weight of his backpack, which was still laden with the textbooks he’d paid too much for and no longer needed, stopped bending to the will of Eren’s worn sneakers. Eren made a final loop around the student union building, watching his breath come to life in the fog in front of his face with each slow breath. After several more sharp, icy inhales and warm, melting exhales, Eren finally reached his dorm building. Eren jogged up the stairs, ready to get to his dorm as quickly as possible so he could toss his backpack on the floor and let himself have a silent moment of cheering. In his dorm, however, rather than peace and quiet, Eren found Jean and Armin eating fast food.

“Eren! We got you a burger,” Armin smiled, tossing a small paper bag in Eren’s direction, which Eren caught fumblingly as he was removing his backpack. “Was that your last final?”

“Yep. All done. Winter break starts now.” Eren threw on a smile, having resigned himself to an evening of the company of friends before he would leave for home the following morning. “I should probably start packing. What time are we leaving tomorrow?”

“I want to leave before noon,” Armin responded, hopping onto Jean’s bed and sidling up next to Jean, taking the phone out of his hands. “But that’s not important now. What’s important is that it is noon on December 17, 2013, and Jean Kirschtein has never seen a _Lord of the Rings_ movie.”

Eren feigned a look of terror. “No!” He gasped.

“I read, like, half of the first book. Doesn’t that count? Do we really have to do this right now?” Jean looked slightly exasperated, but Eren doubted he was sincere. He had been spending so much time with Armin for the last few weeks, and while Eren did have a nagging feeling about that, it seemed unlikely that Jean was about to leave anytime soon.

“You said you wanted to watch a movie. You’ve never seen any of the _Lord of the Rings_ movies. It only makes sense, Jean,” Armin argued.

Eren closed the curtains, set up his laptop on his bed and queued up The Fellowship of the Ring. While it wasn’t his favorite movie, he was pretty sentimental about it. It had been the first movie he and Armin and Mikasa had seen in the theater without their parents. So when the movie finally started, Eren claimed Jean’s desk chair and slid it up next to the foot of the bed where Armin and Jean were sitting, and let himself fall into the familiar lull of the film.

After about an hour of extended scenes of short men running through forests, Eren heard a noise from the bed next to him. He turned to see Jean pressing a kiss into a sleeping Armin’s hair. Armin, at some point, had burrowed his way into Jean’s side, his head leaning on Jean’s shoulder and Jean’s hand knitted tightly in his. Eren knew he probably should have been more shocked by the revelation that Jean and Armin apparently had a thing going, but he was too tired from so many hours of studying and testing that he understood why Armin had fallen asleep. Jean seemed to suddenly realize that Eren was watching him, and his eyes flew wide, momentarily in shock, then his expression quickly changed to a challenging look. Eren threw his hands up in surrender, then turned back to watch the movie.

“Really?” Jean asked, sounding genuinely surprised by Eren’s submission.

Eren shushed him, then fell back into his chair, closing his eyes and letting the sound of hooves beating against the ground bring him to sleep.

* * *

 

A knock came on Levi’s door. The noise of a few birds chirping mingled with the sound of an early summer wind beating against Levi’s office window.

“Come in,” Levi answered, not bothering to look up from the last of the papers he was grading. He would, of course, still be teaching courses over the summer, as he had little else to do and his retirement fund always appreciated the effort. But these last papers of the spring quarter always carried with them a sort of feeling of rotation, from the old to the new.

The door opened with a creak and a body entered hesitantly.

“Yes?” Levi asked, looking up to the figure. Eren Jaeger stood in his doorway, a sliver of sunlight from between the curtains on the window cutting across his face. He stepped forward, and moved to sit in the chair across from Levi.

“Eren. How can I help you?” It was strange to see Eren in his office like this. It had been a long time since he had seen Eren out of his work apron. Even there, at Corporal Coffee, Eren had seemed to be avoiding Levi more, preferring to work preparing coffee rather than working the register as much as possible. The few times Eren had actually been working the register on mornings that Levi came in, Eren seemed to be deliberately avoiding touching his hand as he took Levi’s money. It was killing Levi to see Eren so consciously circumventing any sort of contact with him, and it hurt worse knowing that he was only doing it because he had asked him to. But this visit was different. Eren wasn’t avoiding Levi’s eyes. Rather, his large, placid green eyes were staring right into Levi’s.

“I need a letter of recommendation,” Eren said simply. “If you’d be willing to give me one.”

“Of course. What for?” Levi took out his planner and a pen, scribbling “ _Eren Jaeger – LoR”_ into the margins.

“I’m transferring to Sina. University,” Eren added as an afterthought.

Levi’s pen stopped as he was finishing the curve of the R in _Jaeger_.

“Are you really?” Levi murmured, finishing the note and slipping his planner back to the side of his desk.

“Yeah. Did all the application work already. I’m basically in; they just need a letter of rec.” Eren explained. His hands were folded in his lap neatly, and his posture seemed almost rehearsed. It probably was. After months of avoiding Levi, it probably took significant effort to come into his office, look him in the eye over the desk where Levi had taken Eren in his mouth only several months prior, and speak as if nothing had happened.

“Any particular reason why?” Levi knew the reason why. Eren would still be at Rosa Maria if nothing had happened between them, that much was obvious. It just felt like it had to be something that was said out loud to make it official.

“I needed a change. After everything that happened, I sort of fell into this loop, and about ninety percent of that loop involved avoiding you,” Eren admitted. “Sina just seemed like a logical solution to all that.”

“Their criminology program is garbage.”

“Not as good as Rosa Maria’s, no,” Eren laughed.

“But you genuinely believe this is what’s best for you, right?” Levi asked quietly, his eyes growing serious.

“I think so, yeah.” Eren smiled optimistically, and it struck Levi that he’d been waiting to see that smile for months.

“Good. I’ll email you the letter of recommendation in a few days,” Levi said.

“Okay.” Eren stood up, and held his hand out, and it took Levi a few seconds to realize that Eren was waiting to shake Levi’s hand. Levi was generally opposed to hand shaking, and really only did it with coworkers or his boss, assuming they weren’t covered in dirt (a state that Hanji seemed to be in near constantly). It was a gesture used exclusively for people with whom he shared a mutual respect. Levi brought his hand up to meet Eren’s.

“Thank you,” Eren said, gripping Levi’s hand firmly. “I really appreciate it.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Levi replied, releasing Eren’s hand. The two nodded at each other and Eren turned to leave. Just as he took a step, he turned back around and swung his backpack around to unzip a pocket. He pulled out a length of soft emerald green and tossed it in Levi’s direction. Levi caught it in both hands and stared down at the cool wintery green of his old scarf. He had nearly forgotten about it, having thought that Eren would keep it as a sort of token of the past, a symbol that would give him motivation to move on. Thinking on it now, that seemed a little overdramatic. It seemed Eren really had let it go.

“Thanks,” Levi murmured, running his hands over the soft fabric once more before tucking it into the messenger bag propped up against his desk. Eren nodded and gave a smile tinged with something akin to melancholy. Then, Eren turned again to leave, this time, for good. As he opened the door, he nearly ran into another visitor to Levi’s office.

“Whoa! Excuse me,” Hanji said as they put their hands around Eren’s biceps and swiveled him out the door. When the door was finally closed, they turned back to Levi. “Who was that?”

“Just a student asking for a letter of recommendation.”

“Wow, you don’t have to sound so glum about it. Is your workload really that heavy that a letter of recommendation is making you sound like Eeyore? Not that you don’t usually come across as an ass.”

“It’s nothing, Hanji. Sit.” Levi gestured toward one of the chairs in the corner of his office.

“Wow, you’re really upset, huh?” Hanji asked. “Do you want me to give you a handjob? It’ll be like old times.”

“I’m fine, thanks.” Levi moved to begin grading papers again. Hanji stood and grabbed the pen from his hand, then promptly plopped back down in their seat.

“You’re really not. What’s wrong? I know you’re not going to be bothered talking about this to anyone else.” Levi sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

“I’m unsure,” Levi began unsteadily, “of whether or not I should continue speaking with someone.”

“Ooh, who is it?” Hanji asked excitedly.

“Hanji.”

“Sorry, fine,” Hanji rolled their eyes and tossed Levi’s pen into the air, catching it deftly, then tossing it again. "Well, do you care about them?”

“Yes.”

“And do they care about you?”

Levi paused. “I’m not sure anymore.”

Hanji caught the pen and set it down in their lap.

“Well, text them something insignificant, something that wouldn’t necessarily need a response. If they text you back, you’re in the clear.”

“Wow, that’s… surprisingly smart. Thank you, Hanji.”

“Oh, my God, you are such an asshole.” Hanji picked the pen up off their lap and tossed it at Levi’s head. Levi caught it a few inches from his nose and set it back down on his desk, out of Hanji’s reach.

“Probably.”

“No, there’s no ‘probably’ about it. You are definitely an asshole. The biggest asshole.” Hanji laughed. “How did you trick me into being your friend?”

“I don’t know, but it was pretty stupid of you to fall for it.” Hanji and Levi smiled at each other and Levi drew his phone out of his pocket.

* * *

 

_Levi: I’ll be sending you a physical copy of the letter to your dorm address along with the email._

_Eren: sounds good._

_~_

_Eren: do you know any of the professors in the criminal justice department here?_

_Levi: A few. Is Erikson still there?_

_Eren: yeah_

_Levi: Avoid that man at all costs_

_Eren: will do._

_~_

_Eren: got drunk and told my sister about what happened with us. sorry._

_Levi: I did the same with a friend two months ago. Sorry for not apologizing._

_~_

_Levi: Are you alright?_

_Eren: pretty tired. any reason you’re asking at three in the morning?_

_Levi: Had a dream. Sorry._

_~_

_Eren: met someone._

_Levi: That’s good._

_Eren: you’d like her._

_Levi: Good to know._

_~_

_Eren: got into the bachelor’s program_

_Levi: Never doubted you would._

_~_

_Eren: broke up with Erika_

_Levi: I’m sorry. You okay?_

_Eren: i’ll be fine._

_~_

_Eren: got the CIA graduate degree scholarship!! are you coming to the commencement ceremony next month?_

_Levi: Maybe. I’m pretty busy._

_~_

_Eren: i forgive you, you know. did a while ago. you were right. it was for the best._

_~_

_Eren: i’m graduating next weekend. master’s degree in criminology. you can only come if you wear your doctor’s robes. hat, too. i missed you at the last one._

_Levi: I think I may have burned the hat, but I’ll check my schedule._

* * *

 

It took Levi longer than he thought it would to find Eren in the crowd, even considering the hundreds of other students walking along the path with him. Eren was taller, his shoulders broader. He looked like an adult. Levi didn’t know why, after nearly five years, he would have expected Eren to look exactly the same, but it was still difficult to reconcile that wiry, angry young student with the man about to take his seat among the rows and rows of wooden folding chairs that lined the Sina University football field. From his seat toward the back of the audience, Levi could make out a faraway Eren smiling and waving to someone on the other side of the stands.

The ceremony was boring. The speakers were long-winded and overly praising the crowd of students, less than half of whom probably deserved it. Levi watched Eren the whole time. Eren smiled politely at all of the class elected speaker’s god-awful jokes, nodded solemnly as one speaker addressed how difficult their “journeys” would be from here on out (Levi suppressed an eye roll), and Eren surreptitiously wiped away tears when they began calling the names of the Masters students.  They called Eren’s name and he stepped forward onto the stage and smiled in earnest, broad and toothy, and exuding a sort of happiness that Levi had forgotten about for a while.

In truth, Levi had been afraid to go to the commencement ceremony for Eren’s bachelor’s degree, in part because it would seem excessive on his part, and in part because he was horrified he would screw something up. Eren was getting his chance at happiness, Levi had seen to that, and there he was, smiling brightly in front of a crowd of hundreds and hundreds. Levi had wanted desperately to come, but that kind of happiness was so fragile, so delicate, that Levi’s slightest touch could have shattered it as if the last few years of build-up hadn’t existed. Coming to this ceremony, however, didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt right, and the uneasiness in Levi’s gut diminished slightly as he watched Eren shake hands with professors and make his way towards his seat again.

Levi suffered through the reading of the rest of the names, picking at the petals of the flowers he had been stupid enough to buy and watching Eren glance worriedly at the cloudy sky. As apprehensive about the weather as Eren and much of the rest of the crowd looked, however, not a drop of rain fell down during the ceremony. Then, with a thunderous round of applause and a few errant noisemakers coming from the crowd, the ceremony was finished.

It was a struggle for Levi to track Eren through the throng of graduates and loved ones as he made his way to what Levi assumed must be his family. If you could consider one tall, lean dark-haired girl a family, that is.  Finally, Eren stopped and wrapped his arms around her. Levi weaved through the crowd, leaning out of the way of jutting elbows and ducking under family photos. Finally he reached them. Eren was still talking to the girl, his back turned. Levi coughed half-heartedly to get his attention but the buzz of happy students was too loud for him to notice. Rather than take the few steps forward and tap his shoulder, Levi stared at the young woman who was listening with a small smile as Eren prattled on about how happy he was she could make it. After a few moments, she met his eyes and her smile dropped.

“What?” Eren asked, spotting her confusion. It seemed the woman was just as unwilling to speak as Levi.

Eren turned.

If Levi had been surprised by how much older Eren looked from afar, up close was shocking. Now that he had taken off his cap, Levi could see that Eren had finally decided to shear off his too-long hair down to a length that would show off his eyes and thick, well-shaped brows. Eren’s jaw had set much wider, and his smile fit in it nicely.

“Finally got a haircut?”

“Levi!” Eren’s new jaw broke into a familiar goofy smile and Eren stepped forward to meet him. Without preamble, Eren wrapped his arms around Levi. His arms, once laced with lean muscle, were thicker now, stronger. His formerly lithe body had fleshed out. He felt more whole.

Levi took a moment to respond to the hug, patting Eren’s back briefly with the hand that was not holding the small bouquet of flowers he had almost immediately regretted buying. Finally, after a shared deep breath, the two broke apart.

“I’m so glad you made it.” Eren’s smile did not waver as he gestured toward the woman to come over. “Levi, this is my sister, Mikasa. Mikasa, I’ve told you about Levi before, right?”

Levi suppressed a cringe at the look on Eren’s sister’s face. Apparently, he had told her about Levi before, and apparently, what she had heard hadn’t impressed her. She glanced back at Levi as if to ask, “ _Really? Him?_ ” and raised a discerning eyebrow at the flowers in his hands.

Levi shifted the flowers to his left hand and stuck out his right to meet Mikasa’s. Hers met his with a grip firmer than was necessary. Their eyes met as their grips tightened and Mikasa gave Levi an evaluating stare that made him feel a little bit like a child who’d broken the rules and was about to receive a verdict from his mother. After another second, Mikasa let go and Levi stifled a sigh of relief.

“Eren,” Mikasa began, taking a moment to move her eyes back to her brother. “I’ll meet you back at your place, okay?”

“You sure you don’t want to get some pizza or something?” Eren asked. Mikasa’s eyes flashed to Levi, and she gave a small smile and shook her head. “Alright, well, you get some rest, okay?” Eren pulled her into a hug again and she tip-toed up to put her lips to his ear and whisper something. She pulled away and smiled at Eren, then nodded at Levi. Levi nodded back, and after holding his gaze for a few more moments, she turned on her heel and began walking in the direction of the field entrance.

“Sorry about Mikasa. She was visiting our friend Armin in Spain and she just got back in yesterday. I think she’s just tired.”

“I love her,” Levi stated plainly. Eren burst into laughter.

“Five years later and I still can’t tell when you’re joking,” Eren smiled, still laughing. He cleared his throat and continued. “What are you doing right now?”

“Right now? I’m talking to you. After that, probably heading back home.”

“Aw, do you have to?” Eren seemed genuinely upset at the idea. “Come on, let’s go eat something.”

“Do you know any good pizza places?”

Rather than answer, Eren gave Levi’s hand a quizzical smile.

“Are those flowers for me?”

* * *

 

The pizza itself was decent enough. A little too greasy for Levi’s taste, but then, it always was. They ate and they talked. It was mostly Eren doing the talking, chatting about what he’d been up to for the past five years as he worked toward his Master’s, his current job assistant managing a local coffee shop, his future. Every time Eren tried to move the conversation to Levi, Levi would just say he hadn’t done anything different in the past five years. And truly he hadn’t. He had fallen into something of a lull. The most exciting thing he had done in the last few years was go to Chicago for a conference where he ended up drunkenly texting Hanji about dying alone and about how many cats, in their opinion, would fit in his apartment. So, Levi deflected all of the questions being asked of him back to Eren.

“Do you still have that old scarf?” Eren asked, leaning his chin into his hand, propped up by his elbow resting on the table.  “That green one?”

“I keep it framed above my mantelpiece.”

Eren smiled. “Right next to your collage of pictures of me?”

“Mm-hm.” Levi’s lips twitched toward smiling as he took a sip of his water.

“I missed you, Levi.” Eren said, with an almost affectionate lilt in his voice, a smile still glued to his face. He had rarely ceased to smile since he had first seen Levi only a few hours earlier. Had it really only been a few hours? “And I know,” Eren finally continued, taking his hand out from under his chin and sitting up straight, “that you missed me too.”

Levi was definitely smiling now. “Now, why would I do a thing like that?”

“Oh, it’s written all over your face. Remember, I got that CIA Graduate Scholarship. I’m going to be a federal agent soon. I know things.”

“What sort of ‘things,’ Agent Jaeger?” Levi asked. Eren’s ears reddened slightly at the name.

“Well, I know that you missed me. Otherwise, you probably would have stopped texting me back. You obviously care about me, or else why would you be here?” Eren paused and hummed curiously. “You want to give it another shot.”

“And what led you to that induction?”

“Well, you did bring me flowers.” Eren nodded to the bouquet of white and lavender roses sitting on the table next to him.

“Hm.” Levi tipped his water toward Eren in acknowledgement. He took a sip before he continued. “And how do you feel about that?”

“Well, I’m here, too, aren’t I?”

There was a pause. Eren and Levi watched each other carefully. Eren suddenly burst into laughter again.

“Why are you so giggly?” Levi asked.

“I don’t know. It’s this weird combination of happiness and nervousness.”

“Nervousness?”

“Yeah. I want to impress you, I think.” Eren smiled coyly as he spoke.

“Well, I did bring you roses. Clearly you’re the more impressive one here.” Levi joked. Eren snorted.

“Come on. I’ve got the bill, let’s get out of here.”

Eren paid at the front, ignoring Levi’s insistence that he wasn’t the one with thousands of dollars of student loans to pay off. The two made their way outside only to find that as they had been eating, a light rain had begun falling, and it didn’t seem as if it were going to stop.

“We really should have tried for a closer parking spot,” Levi muttered, taking his car keys from his pocket.

“No, come on! It’s barely raining, and it’s still pretty sunny. Let’s go for a walk. There’s a park three blocks from here.” Eren grabbed Levi’s hand and pulled him in the opposite direction of his car. Levi sighed and let himself be dragged along. He wasn’t dressed for rain, but today was Eren’s day, and he was determined not to fuck up the second chance he’d been given. When they finally settled into a slow, synchronized pace, Eren’s hand did not remove itself from Levi’s. Rather, Eren shifted his hand to further knit their fingers together. Levi rubbed his thumb gently along Eren’s forefinger, and Eren raised the flowers in his other hand up to his nose and leaned in to breathe in their scent. The rain was hardly noticeable to begin with, but with the gentle squeezes Eren gave Levi’s hand, the entire sky might have disappeared and Levi might not have even noticed. The feeling of another hand in his was something he hadn’t felt in so many years, and Levi was starting to wonder if he was really so bereft of human contact that such a simple act would seem so significant. Levi hadn’t really known what he had expected in coming today, but it certainly hadn’t been this. He searched Eren’s face for a sign that maybe he had felt the same way, but found Eren looking up at the sky and smiling gently as raindrops hit his cheeks. Eventually, Eren realized that Levi was looking at him, and lowered his gaze down to the shorter man’s eyes, their gait gradually slowing down to a halt.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Eren asked, that same soft smile still on his lips. Levi’s eyes flickered down to stare at those lips, pink and upturned ever so slightly, then back up into Eren’s eyes, which he found doing much of the same. So it seemed that the only logical progression from this point was for Eren to lean in and capture Levi’s lips in a short, chaste kiss. When they broke apart, their faces stayed close, their noses brushing against one another. It was Levi who moved in this time, tilting his head and deepening the kiss. Eren’s hand came up to cup Levi’s cheek and his other hand, still holding the flowers, wrapped around Levi’s waist, his wide, splayed fingertips coming to rest with a very light pressure against Levi’s back. Levi’s hands had both been trapped against Eren’s firm, broad chest. In their years apart, it appeared that Eren had done his fair share of kissing. While he wasn’t untalented before, it was clear that he had gained some expertise in the matter, and though the kiss was hesitant to begin with, there was no hint of clumsiness coming from either side. After a few moments of calm, careful movements of one set of lips upon the other, the two broke apart and Eren’s eyes drifted far behind Levi and a blush appeared across his cheeks and over his nose. Eren brought his cheek down to rest against Levi’s, his mouth against Levi’s earlobe.

“Maybe we should wait until we don’t have an audience,” Eren joked in a raspy whisper. Levi craned his neck around slowly, not removing himself from Eren’s embrace. Behind him, on the swing set was a pair of giggling teenagers, who looked away as soon as Levi’s gaze met them.

“Well, where do you suggest we go?” Levi asked in a low purr. Eren’s gaze fell to Levi’s lips again as he spoke, and he reached up to wipe a stray rain drop off of Levi’s cheek with his thumb. With a smile, he grabbed Levi’s hand tightly to tug him further down the path they were walking toward the park.  Eventually, they looped around to Levi’s car.

The whole drive home, Eren rubbed at Levi’s leg from the passenger’s seat as he fed Levi directions. Every time his hand wandered too close to Levi’s groin, Levi slapped his hand away and Eren’s hand would retreat back to the safety of Levi’s thigh. By the time they pulled into the parking lot of Eren’s apartment building, Levi’s hard-on was clearly visible through his pants. Eren smirked when they got out of the car and Levi pulled on a long coat from the back seat of his car, despite the warm weather.

“What? It’s raining.” Levi demanded when Eren stood there and eyed the coat with a wicked grin. Eren rolled his eyes and grabbed Levi’s hand again, leading him to the staircase that led to his apartment.

Eren shushed Levi as he ushered him inside the house, pointing to a room where Levi supposed Eren’s sister was sleeping. After the pair pulled off their shoes and Levi carefully hung his coat over a barstool at the kitchen counter, Eren pulled Levi down a hall and into a room.

He shut the door quietly and then giggled as he pulled Levi to the bed, rolling him onto his back, then throwing a leg over his hips to straddle him. Eren pinned down Levi’s forearms and brought their lips together. As their lips moved in tandem, Eren’s hips grinded down against his.

“God, I missed you,” Levi whispered against Eren’s lips.

Eren hummed back in agreement and brought his hands up to unbutton Levi’s shirt. He fumbled and Levi reached up to help him. After what seemed like an eternity of hard work, the shirt was unbuttoned and the two stopped kissing as they awkwardly removed it and tossed it to the side.

Eren made his way up the side Levi’s jaw and nibbled gently at Levi’s earlobe before making his way down Levi’s neck. Every kiss he brought down came with the scratch of the stubble running over Eren’s chin and across his jaw. Eren paused at Levi’s collar bone, giving it extra care. He placed gentle kisses across the length of Levi’s clavicle, then down to a nipple, where he bit down, drawing a quiet moan from Levi. That was unexpected. Eren looked up at Levi, grinning, then bit down again, before soothing it over with his tongue, feeling the vibration of Levi’s chest as he let out another moan. Eren, curious now, brought his head back up to Levi’s neck and kissed it gently, before biting into the crevice between neck and shoulder. Levi’s lips shut tight as he stifled another, louder moan.

“Shh!” Eren whispered before biting down on Levi’s neck, harder, heralding the loudest moan yet.

“Stop it,” Levi demanded in a harsh whisper. Eren removed his mouth and Levi let out a pitiful sort of whine. Eren went to smirk at him, but Levi’s eyes were shut tight, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. Eren shifted his body down so that he was straddling Levi’s knees, his ass in the air, and his head above the visible bulge in Levi’s pants. Eren undid the button and zipper swiftly and pulled Levi’s achingly hard, dark pink cock out. After a moment of mental preparation, Eren lowered his lips to meet it.

Eren was clumsy, probably not very experienced with sucking cock. And while Levi could have done with slightly less teeth, he had never been with someone so focused and determined to suck him off. All of Eren’s attention seemed to be on Levi’s dick. One hand was around its base, another hand on Levi’s thigh for balance, and his mouth was covering Levi’s dick as far as it could go, his wet tongue meeting it greedily.

 Eren took his mouth and hand off of Levi’s cock. Craning his head sideways, Eren licked messy kisses up the side of his dick, from the very base to its tip, where he let his mouth sheathe it again. Eren hummed as he sucked, garnering more desperate vocalizations from Levi. Eren dug his fingernails into Levi’s thigh, and Levi’s hips jerked. Eren scratched down Levi’s side and Levi let out a low groan. With every tiny, painful act Eren inflicted, Levi gave a louder reaction. Breathing hard and close to coming, Levi marveled at just how much this one man could do to him.

“Eren, I’m close,” Levi panted, running his fingers through Eren’s hair, for a moment mourning the loss of his longer locks, if only for pulling. Eren pulled his mouth off of Levi slightly, letting his lips tighten around the tip as he brought his hand back to help his mouth work the cock to orgasm. Levi, having held off as long as he could, finally let himself come. Eren moaned as Levi came in his mouth, swallowing down each load as it came, until Levi’s dick gave a final twitch and was done.

Eren, out of breath, sat back up on Levi’s thighs. He wiped at his mouth with the elbow of his shirt sleeve before carefully unbuttoning it, shearing it off, and throwing it down next to Levi’s. He smiled down at a red-faced Levi.

“Sorry.”

“What for?” Levi huffed back.

“Sorry it took me five years to pay you back.” Eren leaned down and placed a gentle kiss at the corner of Levi’s mouth before rolling off him and reaching out toward his bedside table. He opened the drawer in it and pulled out a condom and some lube, setting them on the table and lying back down next to Levi, and turning his head to look at him.

Levi glanced at the lube and gave him a questioning look. Eren laughed and slung his arm over Levi’s chest, letting his fingers drift slowly over its planes.

“You know what they say. ‘For a rainy day.’ And it’s definitely raining.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long! Big thank you to my beta Katie, without whom this fic would be abandoned in some poor, dusty old corner of my hard drive.  
> Thank you so much for reading!  
> There is now [art](http://yazmineakram.tumblr.com/post/76933142968/my-internet-is-done-being-gross-so-where-is) for this fic! Wow!!! Thank you so much Belly!! :)


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